wow it's been forever since i wrote on here.  all i have to say is.......24 days till i become mrs. tricia bauer!!!!!

it's official........I'M MOVING TO MINNESOTA!!!!!!! 

The story:

Very recently, I have been looking for another job.  I love it at the hospital and I am technically working full-time, but benefits are not included in my position.  They were in the midst of making up a position where that would be possible (with insurance!), but it hasn’t happened and I thought it would back in August…. so it’s been frustrating.

• My heart.....that God would stir my affections for Jesus during this new change - to depend on Him, to praise Him, and to pray for all that is to come
• Stress...... specifically any that may come from being far from my parents and Curt’s parents during the wedding planning we have to do.  Also, the stress that would come from moving these next two weeks! 
• Wisdom..........there is a huge question of where I’d live.  I do have options (PTL) but I just pray that I will be able to discern the best one that fits in my budget (as best as possible).

The Lord moves fast when he knows what you need, and I will praise Him in great ways for this amazing opportunity to grow not only professionally, but personally.  HE IS FAITHFUL.

"Illusions" by Ryan Cabrera

Middle of the night and it's getting so hard to breathe.
You can't sleep, can't think, can't hardly dream.
Do you fear what the world wants you to be?

Open your eyes and just see what the world is,
Open your mind and you're free.

There's more in this world than we see,
Just leave these illusions behind and run with me.
If all of the things that you thought you would be,
Pass you by.
We'll find what we need in our lives.
We'll find what we need in our lives.

I spent a lifetime hoping it would come to me.
Getting lost in the lies I believed.
We're covered by a mask that we think is our sin,
But we never realized that the truth is within.

Open your eyes and just see what the world is,
Open your mind and you're free.

There's more in this world than we see,
Just leave these illusions behind and run with me.
If all of the things that you thought you would be,
Pass you by.

And what are you hiding from?
Is it safe there inside your walls?
'Cause your chance is bound to come,
If you're strong enough to live at all.

We'll find what we need in our lives.
We'll find what we need in our lives.

Open your eyes and just see what the world is,
Open your mind and you're free.

There's more in this world than we see,
Just leave these illusions behind and run with me.
If all of the things that you thought you would be,
Pass you by. Pass you by.

There's more in this world than we see,
Just leave these illusions behind and run with me.
If all of the things that you thought you would be,
Pass you by.

We'll find what we need in our lives.
We'll find what we need in our lives.

Currently Reading Don't Waste Your Life By John Piper see related

Don't Waste Your Life - John Piper

The Crystal- Clear Reason for Living

The Bible is crystal-clear: God created us for his glory.  Thus says the Lord, "bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory" (Isaiah 43:6-7).  Life is wasted when we do not live for the glory of God.  And I mean all of life.  It is all for his glory.  That is why the Bible gets down into the details of eating and drinking.  "Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).  We waste our lives when we do not weave God into our eating and drinking and every other part by enjoying and displaying him.

What does it mean to glorify God?  It may get a dangerous twist if we are not careful.  Glorify is like the word beautify.  But beautify usually means "make something more beautiful than it is," improve its beauty.  That is emphatically not what we mean by glorify in relation to God.  God cannot be made more glorious or more beautiful than he is.  He cannot be improved, "nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything" (Acts 17:25).  Glorify does not mean add more glory to God. 

It is more like the word magnify.  But here too we can go wrong.  Magnify has two distinct meanings.  In relation to God, one is worship and one is wickedness.  You can magnify like a telescope or like a microscope.  When you magnify like a microscope, you make something tiny look bigger than it is.  A dust mite can look like a monster.  Pretending to magnify God like that is wickedness.  But when you magnify like a telescope, you make something unimaginably great look like what it really is.  With the Hubble Space Telescope, pinprick galaxies in the sky are revealed for the billion-star giants that they are.  Magnifying God like that is worship. 

We waste our lives when we do not pray and think and dream and plan and work toward magnifying God in all spheres of life.  God created us for this:  to live our lives in a way that makes him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth he really is.  In the night sky of this world God appears to most people, if at all, like a pinprick of light in a heaven of darkness.  But he created us and called us to make him look like what he really is.  This is what it means to be created in the image of God.  We are meant to image forth in the world what he is really like.