Puppy and Prayer

So I stink at blogging.  I said I was going to try and post one a day.  Well, Life happens!  This has been such a busy week...mentally, especially.  We got a new puppy Monday (has it really only been a week?).  Needless to say, it's almost been like having a newborn baby in the house again, without the nursing every 3 hours!  It's not really that physically demanding, although the whining at night and waking up at 6:30 to go potty is tough!  The hardest part is during my kids' awake hours, especially my 1 year old.  They love Tad and want to pet him and hold him all the time!  Trying to keep Bryce from even stepping on him is mentally exhausting!  And watching for the telltale sign of sniffing! 

Saying all that, we love him so much!  He is a Yorkshire Terrier, or a Yorkie and like I said, we named him Tad.  As the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan, would say, he's a medium energy dog. It's funny, when my blog buddy Mandy first started her dog training business, she mentioned the Dog Whisperer a lot.  I had only heard of the show, never watched it, and honestly thought he was some sort of dog psychic.  Now, because of her blog, I'm hooked!  My hubby even bought me Cesar's book How to Raise the Perfect Dog for my Kindle app on my iPod Touch.  It's been so helpful!  I can already tell it's working.  And housebreaking is going well, too. If you live in Southeast Arkansas and you need some help with your dog, or just a great place to board your dog, go check out Mandy's Canine Corrections.

Now for the real reason why I'm blogging today.  I wanted to share a little bit about what's going on in our church.  This month, we've been focusing on the Holy Spirit.  Just trying to get back to a place where we see Him as Holy.  A lot of the time, the Holy Spirit is seen as the "red-headed step-child" of the Trinity.  So in order for us to focus on the Holy Spirit more, we have to pray more.  Each week in January has been dedicated to a different type of praying.  The first week, we were given detailed questions that we were to pray through every day designed to really make us evaluate where we are spiritually.  The second week, we fasted for one day as a church.  The third week, which was this week, we had a prayer journey.  This was amazing!  Kudos to Rodney, our student pastor, for doing most of the prep.  This was held this past Thursday night.  We simply came to the church at different times and went into the sanctuary.  There were different tables, or stations, set up all over the sanctuary.  Each station had a different activity to do which was designed to help direct your prayers.  For example, one station was set up with Play-doh.  We were to examine ourselves and see if we'd made any idols in our lives.  Then, make an image of that idol with the play-doh.  And then smash it!  Another station had scrabble letters laid out.  We were to create words that show what God has been in our life.  And you could build off of other people's words!  One of my favorites was a station that simply held 2 bowls.  One with a lot of water and the other started out empty.  As you prayed at that station, you filled a ladle with water and poured it into the other bowl, symbolizing how our prayers mix together.  This was a very reverent time.  No words were spoken, except to our God.  If you'd like any more info on this event, leave me a comment!

This Sunday is our last Sunday in this series.  Hopefully, it is going to be a very special day in the life of our church.  I can't really go into the details yet, but I can say that we're only having only 1 service and no Bible study that morning.  Everyone is being told to come in expectation.  I cannot wait to see what God does!  I'll give an update next week.

Be in prayer for our church this Sunday.  Pray that lives will be changed.  Pray that hearts will be focused on Him, and not on superficial things.  And be in prayer for our family.