Procrastination is of the devil! 
I have to joke about it because it drives me crazy! Some folks thrive in that environment. For me, it creates stress! In school, I was not the one that was staying up all hours of the night to complete that project that I had known about for nine WHOLE weeks. I work on things at a pace that will ensure that I am not scrambling to get things done.
I am a bit of a perfectionist. Procrastination interferes with this! When I start scrambling, I start messing up! I drive myself crazy when I make mistakes – mostly because they are careless, rushed errors.
I learned my lesson the hard way. I realized that I am a monster when I am forced to leave things to the last minute. It’s totally because I could have already taken care of things to be prepared and ready to turn in the project. Isn’t it funny how different things effect people in different ways? Do you have a pet peeve?
Matt has been gone for a week and a half now and so much has happened since he left. Last week I was slammed with PTO obligations and in the middle of that, Julianna fell and broke her arm at school. We went to the orthopedic doc and waited forever. We got the cast on it and I was able to scoot out to the Women’s Conference for one of the sessions and the recap. I rushed home to hurry up to prepare for the Saturday afternoon rehearsal for the weekend services. [I'm REALLY missing Matt at this point!] God said to me, “slow down!” I sat down. He refreshed me in a way that I can’t really say has ever happened. I kept my focus on Him during the craziness. I can’t really explain why it [stopping to sit] made this HUGE impact on me…except that I was STILL. In the busyness and stress of life, while we glance His direction once or twice per day, it doesn’t really equivocate what stopping to hear Him does for us. At once, the scripture, “Be still and know that I am God” flooded me. I got it! I experienced it!
No matter what, busy times require a mandatory slow down. He does so much for calming to rush that we are overwhelmed by. He takes the mountains of trouble away. He brings comfort. He fills us up. He refreshes us. I’m so grateful that He loves me!
I feel so down at this moment. I’m afraid that I’ll come back to this post, re-read, and delete it. I had to tell my best friend that I would see him in 5 weeks. I can’t even explain why it feels so heavy. I just know that Matthew is my, well, he’s everything to me. He’s going for training.
My girls have known for some time that he was going to leave because I didn’t want them to be surprised at the length of his absence. My heart broke when I watched them trying to say goodbye. Julianna stood at the door and refused to let him pass. The scream, “Noooooooooooooo” that passed through her when he finally did pass was excruciating. It was everything that I could do to be as strong as I could. Rachael was holding so tightly to his legs that she was being ‘drug’ as he tried to take a step. After he drove off, I found Baylee in her room crying – BIG cries. She told me that this had been the worst week of her life.
See, I’m a big girl and I see the big picture a little easier than they do. That’s the part that shatters me. I can’t stand watching them feel so broken with no control over anything.
As I stood there watching them all try to say goodbye to their daddy, and he to them, God spoke to me. He said, “See! Sometimes what hurts the most is right in line for blessing and destiny to happen.” I felt a little confused for a second, wondering why ‘I’ may have conjured this idea, but then I realized that He was speaking of Matt’s absence. In order for Matt to become who he was created to be, he has to leave for this training. He has been destined for great purpose. The steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord. I take comfort in knowing that He has ordered the path that Matthew is following. It doesn’t make it any easier, but in times such as these, He will be everything I need. The hardest thing for me to do is to say goodbye – I have learned it is a little easier to say, “See you later!”
Two weekends ago marked an amazing weekend for Pointe North Community Church and the ministries within. God blessed us so that we were able to ‘bring the kids home’ to the main campus. For the first time in PNCC history, we have every ministry under the same roof!
The facility looks amazing. The buzz surrounding this first weekend has gone before us! The second weekend was amazing as we hosted the Alive Praise Band [APB] to lead worship!
We are growing and are in desperate need of your help! If you have a heart for new generations becoming passionate about Jesus, call the church or email me and I’ll get you the information you need!
1. I don’t ever go barefooted – even in my own home. Socks aren’t good enough – it has to be shoes!
2. My fingers are double-jointed.
3. I played 1st chair flute in jr high band and moved to the drum line in high school [band geek].
4. I LOVE pickles [dill].
5. I’m afraid of ‘heights’ or falling [maybe the pain that comes from it].
6. I grew up on a street called “Monkey Bottom Road”, in Welcome, NC.
7. I only ‘dated’ my husband 4 weeks before we got married – met him 3 months before that [and only saw him the weekend].
8. Got married by a justice of the peace and celebrated with a wedding 3 months later.
9. I have never been out of the country for real [Bahamas don't count].
10. Can’t pick a favorite color because there are too many neck-in-neck races.
11. I love Mac computers and will not get another PC for myself! [my MacBook Pro is my baby!!!]
12. I used to be a pack rat but those tendencies are leaving – quickly. . .along with the stuff!
13. I have a dog that will only sing with me!
14. I ran away from a boy when I was twelve because he wanted to ‘french kiss’ me. I was mortified!
15. I coerced my friend Tabitha into 1st stealing my grandfather’s Lucky Strike filter-less, FULL flavor cigs, and 2nd – inhaling.
16. I unashamedly laughed so hard at her when she turned green [ See #15] and started pleading with God to ‘let her live and she’d never smoke again’, that I peed on myself.
17. My nervous habit is laughter. Once it starts, it is uncontrollable!
18. I was Little Miss Muffet in the school play [4K]!
19. When quoting a bible verse in front of the whole church as a teen, I proceeded to say dot dot for the colon [:] instead of just saying the passage.
20. I love cotton candy, but blue is my favorite color of cotton candy.
21. I backed my mom’s car into the ditch when I was three.
22. I am highly competitive – to a fault!
23. I traumatized a childhood buddy with the ‘rat-men’ under the bed. [It was the characters that were the rats in the play, The Nutcracker. They scared the mess out of me! To this day, she nor I can let anything extend over the side of the bed!]
24. My favorite candies are “peach rings” or “apple rings”!
25. A boy knitted me an aqua sweater when I was 12 [same boy as #14].
I find this HILARIOUS and laughed so hard that I cried!! My home is full of girls! The Doty home is full of boys [because the girl is too little right now]! Sunday we were on our way to get some dinner and Baylee [my 8 yr old] and Bryson [7 yr old boy] were having a conversation about Baylee’s desire to be a farmer. Don’t ask me! She’s adamant about this profession. I never even heard the conversation [which I probably would have lost it completely if I'd have heard it going on!].
Back to my story. . . Baylee was telling her sisters ‘how to milk a cow’. This is what Bryson had explained to her, and she took him at his word since he was an expert! He has milked a cow for REAL!!!! “Baylee, you have to pull on the cow’s wiener until the milk comes out. Just keep on pulling it – and it’s hard work, but the milk comes out. I promise!”
Imagine me in hysterics at this moment! Baylee had no clue what a wiener is! Remember that we’re a home of GIRLS! We had to politely explain that it was the same as mommy’s feeding their babies – and the milk comes from the same place. Matt was 90 million shades of red and tears were streaming down my face. Matt went on to say, Baylee, farmers call the utters ‘teets’. Baylee quickly popped back, “Oh! So you pull the teet wiener until the milk comes out?!”
One day she’ll get tickled when she realizes what happened! I love the innocence of these kids! I died laughing when I realized that Bryson thought the poor cow got milked by HER wiener! FUNNY!!!!! Hope you get a laugh as BIG as I did!!!!
No really, it stands for “Divine Biblical Community”, er, yeah, really! *wink* That’s our small group! Ummmm hmmmmm – I can’t even begin to express what this has come to mean to me. We have really experienced what a small group community is and what it is intended to be here! The engaging, deep spiritual growth that is happening is beyond anything that I’ve ever seen. There is not ONE person there that isn’t pursuing a new level to their relationship with the Lord!
Grace is what we’ve been studying lately. I’ll probably post on that later! I just wanted to say that I miss my small group when we have to cancel. I miss the place that I can cut up and have a blast and be spurred to grow to deeper levels than I even knew existed!
Thank you DBC! I love y’all!
Life often gives us situations to endure that we feel is awful. Honestly, it’s how we deal with those situations that either make or break us. I hope that we can step back and see that, while things look convoluted, God surely sees them in big picture view – and they’re straight on target.
Let me encourage you with this thought! When you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, you may have to endure a little hardship. That brokenness is more than a feeling though. That brokenness is what allows God to step in and, of course, receive the glory, but He draws us closer to Himself during these times.
There are two types of people; those that will run FAST and HARD into His arms and those that will run FAST and HARD away – ever complaining about how terrible the situation is. I know that I have removed the complaining attribute from myself and laid it at His feet. Often, I want to pick that thing back up so I can compliment my ‘outfit’ of negative, criticism so perfectly.
THEN, I remember, my feelings will drag me to that place. I, once again, SHED my cloak of complaining, negativity, and criticism. Those feelings make me think, no, believe the lies the enemy feeds me at that moment. At that point, I have more than feelings to deal with – because I let myself get in the way!
I can’t even begin to explain how overwhelmed at the goodness of God I am! Seriously! He finds me so special that He wants to bless me – and you for that matter! I just want to give Him glory and share a little of what He’s doing in my life – because He is the only one worthy enough to receive glory!
‘What had happened was’ . . . a couple of weeks ago(Aug 22nd), someone came to me and said that they wanted to remain in a ministry – and pour more out because they saw my heart and passion for the Lord – and that spurred them to want to worship. Can you say FLOORED!
Several days after that (Sep 9th), I got a text from someone that said how much they really appreciated me. I must admit that when I got this text, I broke down crying because I had begun to ask God in my quiet time if I was even effective where I am at. The very next day, I got home from picking the kids up from school (Sep 10th) and saw a bouquet of flowers on my front porch. I get tickled here because I got a little confused. Actually to preface everything, the florist goofed and had a “Happy Birthday!” pick inserted into this arrangement. I stood puzzled for a moment trying to figure out who had my birthday wrong (its October) and then quickly decided these flowers had been delivered to the wrong location. I’m literally giggling as I write this because I didn’t think to look at the card at this point – I was just freaking out trying to figure out where I needed to get them – so that someone could get their own blessing that accidentally got delivered to the wrong address. DORK!
So, I finally remembered to check the card and broke down sobbing as I was so overwhelmed at the six words printed on the card. “Because you are you. Love, so and so.” I couldn’t begin to imagine why someone would want to send me flowers – just because – and NOT someone in my family! When I went to share thanks for the generosity and share what it meant to me, I was overwhelmed again. She began to expound on her reasons for doing what she did – it certainly stunned me. I was speechless. . . and for me, that almost seems impossible.
Today, I was between piano lessons (Sep 21st), working with Baylee to get her homework done before my next lesson came. The phone rang. “Hello!” I said, and on the line, someone that works at the church we attend said, “Ashley, are you going to the ladies conference?” I said, “Uh. . .well, uh. . .” [See, all of my extra money is going to Baylee's tuition. ALL of it! I was trying to think of a way to say that I can't really afford it without saying that!] In mid-sentence, she interrupted me and said, “Someone has called and asked if you are going. They said to that they wanted to remain anonymous, but they wanted to provide you with the scholarship to go if it was financial reasons that are keeping you from going.” I think I squeaked out, “I guess I’m going?” She immediately said, “God is good isn’t He?” I think that’s an understatement though.
After my last lesson this evening, I was chatting [go figure] with someone and they told me that during one of the worship songs we did at KP this weekend, their spouse was able to go into deep worship – in CHILDREN’S CHURCH!! Thank You Jesus for using me as a vessel not only for the kids, but to make a difference in the adults too! These things don’t happen to me. I am the person that sits back and celebrates with others these happenings. I’ve not ever been in this seat before. I’m honored, but feeling so unworthy of this outpouring of blessing.
Overwhelmed. ”(1) To have a strong emotional effect on, or
(2) to be too strong for; overpower”.
God has certainly overpowered my emotions. He has spoken volumes to me! He knows what we need, WHEN we need it! These blessings have come in many different faces [some I've seen and other's I haven't] but the true face behind them is one that I love with all my heart! I’m learning how to be exactly who He intended me to be. I’m grateful that He loves me and that He chooses to show me through those around me – in the most unexpected ways EVER!
Five years ago today, my baby was born. It was amazing. Her smile makes all the bad things disappear. She is so intelligent! She loves me more than anyone in this world. [DISCLAIMER - YES she IS a Drama Queen]
She lights up a room with her grin. She steals the hearts of all who come to know her because she is so genuine.
Happy birthday baby girl! Daddy and I love you more than you know. You were a complete blessing to us and we can’t imagine what our family would be without you being a part of it! I love that you love without abandon – with every part of who you are! You, baby girl, are amazing!
