Excuses

And the award for the most slack blogger goes to ME!

I've been avoiding you, blog. And the longer I stay away...

In all seriousness though, I have been sick...and busy. I have taken a while to recover from last week's sickness and then about a week ago, started feeling nauseous on top of it. Talk about hitting me while I'm down! And no, I'm not pregnant.

In all seriousness (again), I did get an award a week (or two) ago from the lovely lady at Creating Childhood Memories (still just LOVE the name of this blog!!)

Thank you! I am always so honoured when somebody like my blog. Here it is:

 I was supposed to write 10 things about me and pass it on, but I think that boat has well and truly sailed so we'll move on.

 

And I've been busy because, over the Easter weekend, we had an 

incredible conference, Shout conference, at our church with

Israel Houghton and Newbreed!!

They were flippin' awesome.

Israel is from Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas.

You just gotta listen to this song! And I heard it LIVE

My mouth was open at times. Ask Sammy. She had to close it once.

So it was full on and busy but TOTALLY worth it. I still feel like I need time to stop and download some of what was said. And Turbo had a ball. The kids conference was so well run and well thought out with heaps to do. Happy Turbo = happy me.

On Sunday we headed over to Sammy's house to catch up with family and do an Easter egg hunt for the kids. My other sister organised a game for the grown ups too, which got a little, erm...competitive. Picture Mr Samoa forcefully restraining Sammy from getting her next clue and my mom flat on her face after trying to run up the stairs in slippers!

To top off the lovely weekend, my parents took me and my two sisters to the movies last night. We nearly died of boredom during the movie (do NOT see Another Year!) but it was nice to get out.

I hope you had a lovely Easter! And hope to check in with you all soon

My friend doubt

Love times a thousand the message we had at church Sunday morning. This particular preacher tends to bring a real, new perspective on passages of the Bible that we've all heard many times before.

This was the story of the journey of Mary, Jesus' mother, prior to His birth and the growing up part of Jesus' life up until He was about 12 years old. Long story short, even though Mary had been visited by angels before Jesus' birth, visited by shepherds and strange, wise men after His birth, and had a huge star above the place she gave birth (I thought of  this one!), her and Joseph were still amazed by the words Simeon spoke when they took Jesus to the temple when He was a week or so old.

New Zealand actress Keisha Castle-Hughes playing Mary in the movie The Nativity Story

Photo from here

And spite of all that had happened and all that was said, she was still surprised when 12 year old Jesus went missing after the annual trip to Jerusalem and was later found in the temple, learning from the scholars and asking questions.

She had a friend that we all have: doubt. And we tend to get more and more friendly with doubt as the years pass by and the words we once believed have not yet happened.

But without doubt, there is no room for faith. If we weren't doubtful about the outcome of something, we wouldn't need to exercise our faith because we'd already know that it was going to be ok.

Yes! Doubt is my friend. Because it gives me the opportunity to be a woman of faith.