Grace

Grace, a word I have always understood as God's Riches At Christ's Expense. I am starting to understand this word on a deeper level.

Somewhere I decided that my life was ministry, not just my job. Which means that everything I do becomes a part of my ministry. I decided this way back when I started this blog and that is why it is titled Agape Dreams. My earthly dream is to live in such a way that people seek God and His unfailing perfect love.

Well recently I have had the opportunity to learn about Grace in a new way. I don't think we will ever fully understand the gift of grace while living on earth but when you are presented with the opportunity to try to give grace and show grace to someone who won't accept it, it starts to make more sense.

On the cross, Christ offered us a gift. This gift is unlike any other. The youth group and I have discussed this as the most beautifully wrapped present you can imagine, sitting there with your name on it. You didn't have to shop for it, you didn't have to pay for it, it is just there for you. We all have the choice whether or not to open it. And even after we have opened it we have the choice whether or not to let this gift become part of our lives. This gift was paid for on the cross. This is the gift of grace. We have the choice to do with it as we please.

So what happens when we choose to use this beautiful present as a football, and kick it around, rather than what it was intended for? Is there a line? Does God ever draw a line in the sand and say this is it, you have chosen not to accept my gift, therefore I take it back, and you can spend eternity without it?

I believe the answer is yes. In Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus tells us that there will be a separation of the sheep from the goats. Sheep know their master's voice and follow where He leads. Goats are stubborn and do things their own way. The Bible also talks about an unforgivable sin, which is blaspheming the Holy Spirit. And to truly do that your soul has to deny the Holy Spirit. There is a line, thankfully I'm not God, and I don't have to draw this line.

But there are times on Earth when we are presented with opportunities to share Grace with other people, and sometimes we have to continually watch them take that Grace and throw it back in our face. And sometimes we are presented with the decision of drawing a line in the sand and saying this is it. There is the line you can't come back from.

This was a line I had to draw a week ago with someone I love more than I understand. And putting my foot down and drawing that line was probably the hardest thing I have ever had to do. It is very obvious that I am grieving right now, and even a week later I can't get this off my mind. I find myself doubting my decision to draw the line and walk away.

But the truth is, that I love this person enough to let them make this choice on their own. And my line in the sand is not eternal, it is more of the Prodigal Son story and I have to let them go, and pray that hopefully they will see the light someday and come back.

My question for awhile was, "Is there a line between grace and stupidity?" Is there a point when what I'm considering grace is not helpful for anyone involved. Is there a point when I just have to walk away and let them do with my gift of grace what they will? The answer is yes. There is a line, and for each person that line may be different.

The thing I have to remind myself is that even though God draws the line, it doesn't change how much He loves us. His love never changes and is always there waiting for us, but true love has to be a choice, and not one made for you. Which means when I made the choice to walk away last week, it didn't change my love for this individual. I still love them, and always will and maybe one day they will see it, but if not they taught me a whole lot about grace, and this amazing gift that God has given us, and how we don't have choose it. And as heartbreaking as this situation was for me, I can't imagine how heartbreaking it is for God. His line is eternal, when people cross it they're really gone forever, and I'm sure that breaks His heart, quite possibly more than watching His son create this amazing gift on the cross.

Grace, how will you use this gift that has been given to you? And how will you show it others? What does Grace mean to you?

Adam's Sermon 10/11/15

“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips then walk out of the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” – Brennan Manning

The biggest turn off to Christianity is Christians? How is that possible? Christians are Christ followers; they live their lives imitating Christ. They are loving not condemning. They are doers, active in making a difference in the world. You can tell who they are just by how they carry themselves and interact with others. They pray for others and genuinely care about the well being of the people around them. A Christian is more than just a good person but a person with a special light about them that can only be explained with Christ. A Christian looks like Jesus.

If that is true then how are Christians the ones turning people away from Christ? Jesus tells his disciples to deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him. He didn’t say take my name, create a religion, sit in pews, sing some songs, listen to a message then go on about your life like nothing has changed.

He said, “Take up your cross and follow me.” Jesus carried his cross right up to death’s door. He didn’t get there with a nice house and car, the perfect clothes and money to spare. He got there bruised and bloody. He was covered in dust and dirt with his clothing stripped to merely rags. Somewhere this message became warped. Take up your cross became a fashion statement and we wear them around our necks or on our clothes. Following Christ became filling the pews, staying awake for the sermon, and then beating the church across town to lunch so we don’t have to stand in line.

As Christians we are called to more than this. We are called to a life of being uncomfortable, a life of getting our hands dirty, and breaking our bodies for the cross we have been asked to carry. Christianity is supposed to be more than something worth living for but something worth dying for; which is exactly what the world is looking for. Something worth living and dying for; a cause, a mission, something to fight for. Not another set of rules and regulations they’ll never be able to live up to. That is exactly what the world had before Jesus came.

We are called to be different, to be set apart; to live in this world but not be of it. We are called to live a life of conviction. Our relationships with Christ should be more visible than any other relationship we have.

A relationship with Christ is a marriage, something we’re supposed to fight for. In Joshua, God commands him to be strong and courageous, not to be frightened or dismayed, for He, the Lord our God, would be with him wherever he went.  Joshua was a warrior, he led the people of Israel through battle. We have a war in front of us too. A war against evil and darkness, a war against apathy and indifference. Casting Crowns said is so well in their song Courageous.

Insert Courageous here!

So how does this mission minded United Methodist Church make a stand? By being courageous and not afraid. By being willing to be loud for Christ. By putting our feet on the ground and getting our hands dirty. The average United Methodist Church in America is 94% White, 56% Female, and 32% 65 years old or older. Look around, I’d say we’re pretty average. In America the people who consider themselves unaffiliated with church are 68% White, 57% Male, and 72% ages 18-49. That is the population we need to be reaching.

I am someone that fits that statistic, I am white, male, and between the ages of 18 and 49, but I consider myself affiliated. But I haven’t always. I grew up in the United Methodist Church, my father is a pastor, and I spent my time like a lot of PK’s in the pews napping through my father’s sermons. I enjoyed youth group, conference youth activities, camp, and would occasionally sing a special on Sunday mornings. Over all I was a pretty active youth. Then I graduated and started doing things my own way. My faith life took sort of a back seat. Then I moved this direction and my personal life collided with this church. I started spending time  with the youth and it reminded me how much I wanted and needed God in my life. So I restarted my faith journey begging God to give me my dream job and getting angrier and angrier each time the answer was no. To the point that the darkness took over and moved into my life full time. This darkness was so great that I ceased to function and merely existed on this planet. It wasn’t pretty in fact I was quite ugly. And I did my best to put the light out around me, all the while being frustrated with myself for doing so. It was a constant battle.

There was a light in my life that wouldn’t go out, wouldn’t leave me alone, and wouldn’t quit fighting for me. It turns out there were multiple lights but one in particular was the  most annoyingly bright. There was a battle in my home for my soul. A battle between light and darkness. The Star Wars fan in me sees this as an epic light saber battle. A few months ago the light won and has helped me come to this place where I could get up here in front of you.

Marriage to Christ is a lot like the first few months of mine. A marriage to the light and in order for that marriage to work the light has to win and when it does it is called to shine so bright and beautiful people can’t help but be drawn to it. Jesus tells us to shine like the city on a hill, leading others into relationship with him.

Christianity is called to move, breathe, to love, and fight. Christianity is called to be real not just a church service. It took the light of Christ shining in my face daily for months for me to become more than a statistic. It is going to take you being the light of Christ for others for our church to be more than a statistic. 

A picture we took after church. After Daddy did a good job sharing his message!

You Are Beautiful

At camp this summer Autumn gave her testimony. I wrote her this poem as a symbol of her testimony for years to come.

You are beautiful Lord
When all I can see is darkness
You are beautiful Lord
When I am drowning at sea.
You are beautiful Lord
When I can't see right in front of me.
You are beautiful Lord
When all I know is suffering
You are beautiful Lord
When I push against you
You are beautiful Lord
When hatred fills my heart
You are beautiful Lord
When I just can't let go
You are beautiful Lord
When my tears start to flow
You are beautiful Lord
When I open up my heart
You are beautiful Lord
When I finally let go
You are beautiful Lord
When I learn how to stand
You are beautiful Lord
When I find my voice
You are beautiful Lord
When I share your love
You are beautiful Lord
When you heal my wounds
You are beautiful Lord
Through it all, it never fails
You are beautiful Lord.

25 for Your 25th

Today is Adam's Birthday. So I thought  I would write a special blog for him. So here are 25 reasons I love him! And don't worry honey I'm not sitting here with the book I gave you for your wedding present. These are the 25 reasons that come to mind right now!


25. You make me laugh. This may seem small or trivial, but for this serious person, it is very important.

24. You love Autumn. And you have stepped up to show her that not every man in her life wants to hurt her, and that is so incredibly important.

23. You love my family. Even though my mother takes too many pictures for your liking, you love them. And you interact with them like your own!

22. You gave me a new family. Family is very important to me and you have just given me more! :)

21. You love my job! In a deeper way than I ever could have asked for. You have connected with this church and the youth. They want you around and you want to be around.

20. You have convinced me that dogs are not all scary and you made me fall in love with this one!

19. You love all animals, in a way I will never understand. But I have a better appreciation for them because of you. 

18. You remind me constantly to simplify. There is no need for too many options.

17. You're a nerd! You understand my nerdiness and you are never ashamed of yours!

16. You work hard! You are willing to work overtime and push through it even when you're exhausted.

15. You play hard too! You constantly remind me that it is ok to just spend some time not working.

14. You have joined our Praise Team at Church.

13. You can sing! And you do, all the time! I find great joy in hearing you sing!

12. You pray! You pray for our life together, the things we have going on, it doesn't matter because you pray!

11. You hold me!

10. You understand my soul!

9. Performing Arts Camp. I love it even more because its something you love too.

8. You are totally excited about being a daddy!

7. You like what I cook, most of the time! :)

6. You show a real interest in how I spend my day.

5. You love Camp Horizon almost as much as I do! Which means you never think twice when I'm going to be gone for a week at camp!

4. You know how to relax and you are continuously teaching me how.

3. Your relationship with God is important to you.

2. You changed my last name!

1. You made me a mother! First with Ranger and now with Baby Utt.

I love you for all these reasons and so many more! Happy Birthday my Love!

Best Friend Brag

So I just want to take a moment and brag on my best friend. I seriously was given the best of the best. It doesn't matter what she has going on in her life she always has time for me and what I have going on. We have been best friends long enough that we have seen each other through some crazy times. 7 years in anyone's life is going to be a roller coaster. We have been blessed to get to do these past 7 years side by side albeit miles apart.

This past year for her has been a particularly rocky one. Her mother was diagnosed with Myelodysplastic Syndrome and had to have a Bone Marrow transplant towards the end of November. Well the transplant was successful and so was the 100 day incubation period or whatever they call it. But after a few weeks at home LaDonna had to go back to the hospital. It has been a roller coaster ever since. Well today on their 31st Wedding Anniversary, she is moving to Hospice Care in Wichita.

I had what I'm going to call the honor, of being next to Nicole when she got the call that this move was happening. And it is incredibly hard to watch someone you love fall apart. Nicole and I are both cut from an emotional cloth so we get the pleasure of being there when each other fall apart a lot, but this one was different.

I can't even begin to imagine what is going on in her mind, and no one really wants to think about losing their parents at a young age.

The craziest part for me is the fact that her world is falling apart and yet she still asks me how I'm doing, and cares enough that she wants me to be truthful when I answer. Her world has been a complete roller coaster this past year, and she still somehow managed to be the best Maid of Honor ever and made sure I felt nothing but special on my wedding day. She rejoiced with me when I told her we were pregnant. She held my hand, and drove me to the doctor's appointment to find out if we were miscarrying or not. She has been here every step of the way as we entered parenthood with a 17 year old, and is often my first phone call when I'm frustrated about something with the system.

She has gone through all of these trials with a lot grace and compassion. She hasn't slacked on her job as a Social Worker and I swear she is probably the best one in the state. She definitely works harder than most.

I just thought the world should know that I happen to have the best friend in the world. On the day her mother is moving to hospice care, she cared that I was nauseous this morning. She is one of the strongest most amazing women that I have been blessed to meet in my life, and I am extra blessed to call her my sister and my friend.

I love you Nicole! I don't know how you do what you do, but keep doing it, the world is much better for it!

I absolutely love the top picture. And days like today require a little fishy face!

PS. Nicole, this all came to my mind while eating your cucumber!:P

So Not a Housewife

I want to preface this blog by saying if you are a Housewife, don't take any offense to this post. This is just a post about how I most definitely am not, and sometimes envy those of you who are.

I hate cleaning, I really do. I love Norwex and it has made cleaning something I actually do and don't hate quite so much but for some reason it is still one of my least favorite things to do. If I am spending a day at home or even an evening, cleaning is not at the top of my list....unless someone is coming over.

That being said, I swept the floor last night! The dog hair was ridiculous, and my Norwex floor system was amazing. Note: I said swept not mopped :S

I hate grocery shopping. Hate it, hate it, hate it. And recently have become incredibly bad at it. I mean I really should have made a list before I went but I'm pretty sure I still would have forgotten to put something on the list. Last week I went grocery shopping with a week's worth of meals in mind but not really having any of those picked out. I decided I wanted to make beef and noodles, I bought everything but the noodles! I bought cream corn...I won't eat cream corn! I forgot the macaroni, which might as well be a sin in our house, seriously a whole week without macaroni, AND CORN! I decided to make baked ravioli and the kind of ravioli I bought was disgusting so the meal was a bust. And apparently my husband doesn't like country fried steak, so when I got all excited to try a new meal for him, he said it was ok.

So I guess a long with grocery shopping I can't meal plan to save my life. I decided the other day we were going to have Hamburger Helper because we desperately wanted macaroni and that was the only kind I had, but forgot to thaw the Hamburger out and it was one of those huge rolls of it, so we just had macaroni and Hawaiian sliders. But those were supposed to be two different meals! We've been substituting mashed potatoes for macaroni so I didn't even think to check if we still had potatoes before starting dinner last night, and you can't really have country fried steak without mashed potatoes. So I had to send my husband for more, because we had run out. I was feeling all accomplished for actually cooking for an entire week but each meal was its own kind of failure.

The other thing about being a Housewife would be staying home with the children. Well that just doesn't sound appealing at all. I mean the idea of staying home for 6 weeks for maternity leave sounds daunting other than the fact that I won't be sleeping a whole lot and will need it for my own sanity. Ugh. Babysitting is fine for a couple of hours and I absolutely love the children I work with and can't wait to be a mom, but to stay home all day and play house....I just don't know! They say it is different with your own child and I'm sure it is incredibly hard to leave them with someone else but I am not wired to stay at home.

I happen to have quite a few Stay at Home Mom friends, and I often envy their craftiness and how clean their houses are, but I have to remind myself we are all called differently. I'm pretty sure if I stayed home all day my house would still be a mess, meals would still be iffy, and groceries would still wait until the last minute to be bought. Then I would spend all my time feeling guilty for not accomplishing anything while my husband was at work all day. When I was probably writing Bible Studies and things like that.

So I'm going to do everyone a favor, and not be a housewife. So that means I'm still not going to wash your clothes until you put them in the hamper. I'm not going to spend my time picking up after you, because I have a job and I'm busy all day, that means the house is shared not my job alone. I will clean when I can't stand it anymore. I will cook with whatever pieces of meals I buy at the store and when all else fails Wendy's? I will pay the bills and make sure the necessities still happen. But don't be surprised if you come over to my house and there are not any new crafty things for me to show you, and all I want to do is read or watch TV.

And I will continue to go over to my friend's immaculate houses and come home  and strangely want to clean and create and cook. But I'll get over it in about five minutes, especially if there is a good movie on.

This is one thing I have always known, but didn't really sink in until I got married. I am so not a housewife!

When You Need 6 Tires!

Sometimes it can be hard growing up and moving away. Especially when it comes to finding your own replacements for the things you have grown accustomed to. Finding a new doctor, dentist, chiropractor, those kinds of things are hard to do, especially when you love the ones you have grown up with. Well I have officially accomplished all of the doctor related ones and I replaced church when I moved here because it came with the job.

The hardest one of these for me was replacing my car place. My family goes to Rakie's Oil Company in Arkansas City, KS. This is a full service gas station and tire store. It wasn't until I was in college that I even put gas in my car because I would pull up to Rakie's and they would just take care of it for me. I was (still am) a little spoiled. So when I moved it was really hard what was I supposed to do when something was wrong with my car?

Well there haven't been too many things I've had to take care of here, so most of the time I pushed it off until I could drive home and let Rakie's take care of it. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it but that is what I did. Even being married I preferred for Rakie's to take care of my car issues. I know that when I go there I will be taken care of, and not taken advantage of. That is not something I can guarantee anywhere else I go.

Well Sunday I went out to go to church and one of my back tires was flat. So I drove Adam's truck. I called around Monday morning to find somewhere that would do a patch cheaply and could fit me in that day, so that I didn't have to keep airing it up to get around. I found a place in Newton and they checked it all out and found a piece of wire wrapped around the tire....dang it no cheap patch. Well they didn't have any tires that would fit my car so they would have to order one. They also said I needed my other back tire replaced as well. They also don't do any financing options. Well this week money was particularly tight and there was no way we could buy a tire let alone two, and Adam's truck really needed a new set.

So I got back on the phone that afternoon to find someplace that could finance tires for me. I called Kansas Auto Repair in Newton. A nice lady answered the phone and she said to come in the next day and they would take care of us. So I did. I was incredibly nervous to into a car place hoping they wouldn't see a pregnant lady and try to take advantage. The lady at the front desk was incredibly nice and personable. She knew every single customer by name and genuinely cared about taking care of their car needs. It became obvious after a few minutes that this was a family owned business with her father and husband there as well. I was immediately put at ease.

She was incredibly busy but still took the time to start to get to know me, and our vehicle situation. We took care of the financing paperwork and ordered tires. I went back today and had my car taken care of, with an appointment for Adam's on Tuesday. I was there most of the morning and still had the same impression of this place, they knew everyone by name and they really cared about each person. I saw two different college age guys come in just to say hi before they went off to college, they wanted to stop in while they were in the area.

It's safe to say I have found my Rakie's away from Rakie's, minus the full service gas station. Rakie's will always be home for me, but I have a lot of comfort knowing my vehicles are being well taken care of because I don't have any intention of moving back to Ark City any time soon. We have made this our home and I know I have found the place that in 16 or 17 years I can send this little one in the womb with the car they are driving and they will be taken care of, because they will have been going there their entire life.

Here is the website for Kansas Auto Repair, in case you are in need of a "Rakie's" in this area. http://www.kansasautorepair.com/