I love traditions!! I love making memories with family and friends that we do repeatedly. I long for a tradition that goes for the rest of my life!! My husband and I have a really sweet tradition we do every Christmas visit. We go see the lights at Irvine Park. This year we have an even sweeter reason to participate. Our little sweet boy Loves lights! This morning he smiled at the lights that came on in our van! I'm hoping these will be sweet memories for him! King David also participated in beautiful traditions! One was at the appointing of King Solomon to his throne!
He had King Solomon mounted on a mule. In historic times such a tradition meant the leader took a servant attitude to the people. The mule had a wreath of flowers and a drape around it (thanks to Beth Moore's bible study!) Here's what kind of got me about this... how many kings before participated in this tradition? To me feel tradition is something I can't wait for it to be "my turn" With my family I'm the "tradition maker" and I love it!! What would our world look like if we had such an honor for traditions? I think that's why I love pictures so much!
Just like traditions they tell a story. I love museums too! I love learning why things are the way they are. If I were there in Israel when King Solomon was appointed King I think I would have a huge smile on my face! There's something that's so beautiful about following an ancient custom that I just love! I would love to go to Israel someday just to look around and see a place with such rich history! I would really love to take a tour and see where the Apostles started the church. This last spring we watched the show A.D. on NBC. I thought it was so cool to see what the environment looked like or might have looked like and who the Apostles could have been. Things like that fascinate me!
I think traditions mean more to me though. Why would anyone do something over and over year after year? The only response I can give is that it's important. I guess to me traditions communicate "you're important enough to establish memories with." So now "it's my turn" and I want to make as many memories with my family and friends as I can, because to me you are important enough to make memories with! One of my favorite memories we make are game nights! We have one coming up soon hope you can join in on the fun!
It's just so fun to laugh and get together with people we care about and just be us. Whether that's silly, competitive, direct, opinionated, sleepy, wired, squealing with delight. These memories to me are golden! We're just people with a lot of the same struggles, desires, and aspirations, but in the hours we play together we just kind let it all go and have fun! I'm so happy to have married a man that likes to have people over just as much as I do! We really do make a good team!
Throughout life we'll all have plenty of opportunities to reflect on memories. When I do I want to have many about the lovely traditions we've established for our family! I want to know that most of my time wasn't spent alone or just on my corner of the world. I want to know that I made a difference in other's lives. I want to open up my home to family and friends so they can feel welcome to share and make memories too! If you've been to our home you'll see a lot of pictures. I often look at them and remember what was going on in my life when these were taken. This is the most beautiful part of my life and you'll be able to tell by all the pictures documenting it! I hope and pray we can make many beautiful memories together! When you need to remember something pleasant I hope you can say it was a time we spent together!
I love you with all my heart! May you make beautiful traditions and memories with your loved ones!
Tina Martina Putney
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Making memories with heroes...
Never have I understood the word hero until recently. Superman Spider man even the hulk can be everyone's dream to aspire to but I think a hero is one that goes the extra mile for others. To me that's Jesus! He forgave the worst sinners at no cost to himself. He willingly and obediently took the death on a cross to bring us home. Look around our world today who would do that for us now? Whose your hero?
Last weekend we drove to Wisconsin to hopefully become someone's hero. Whether they'd consider us this or not is not what I'm after it's the fact that we practiced Jesus self-sacrificial love that matters. But let me back up a little bit to Thursday. We met my dad for lunch for the first time in three years.
From previous posts you know that we have had a very difficult relationship. After an almost three year drought of communication God prompted me to reach out in love. This was not an easy thing to do but I learned the meaning of 1 Corinthians 13 through this process. Love keeps no records of wrongs. So as I was getting ready to me meet my dad God relayed this message through a hero of mine! A fellow youth leader and I were talking about this during our retreat and I'm so glad we did because it put me back on track. I was able to focus again on showing love. but what is love?
No hallmark explanation here, to me it's going the extra mile or as we like to say in our home "going first" The lunch with my dad was as example of this. As I reached out my hands to my dad I raised my hands to Heaven and they came back to me in surrender. God had planned this all along. But because I went first I'm able to receive his blessing even if it looks scary or anything but at the time. The blessing is in the surrender! The real gift is the submission to God's will for your life! That's the only time in your life that you will ever feel you are doing the right thing. I know, I just experienced this! Only when we submit to God's will do we ever feel truly confident we are where we're supposed to be. But it's not easy and God never said it would be! It wasn't easy for Jesus either! But instead of keeping records of wrongs he extended his hands to his enemies raised his hands to Heaven and the answer was complete surrender. Because I was able to practice God's self-sacrificial love to my dad I was also able to show it to a dear friend.
My friend lives far from us but we drove to and from lifest all weekend! It was a great lineup especially Saturday night! From Matt Maher all the way to Skillet we were bound to have a great time!! As Zechariah was working stage crew he text me asking if there was anyone our friend would want to bring and immediately I thought of someone. So Zechariah and Nathan went for a drive and picked up this friend. Why did they do it? We were practicing Jesus self-sacrificial love! Luckily our car was a rental so all the driving ended up being fine but honestly that's not what we were thinking about. We were thinking about the memories being made! Instead of our friend going home the next day and just trying to explain her excitement over seeing Skillet live for the first time we wanted her to share that experience with someone special!! Hopefully what we communicated to her last weekend was there is nothing we wouldn't do to show you we love you!
Gas and food is not cheap but sometimes God hands you his will on a silver platter and it's up to you to accept it or reject it. To accept it would mean possible hardship on you (more like guaranteed) but the greater reward is the people he wants to reach through your obedience. To reject it means you're choosing to focus on yourself and take the easy way out (which is Satan's choice). I hope that in my life there's several examples I can point to that shows the first response. I know you'll catch the negative reactions and responses but in the end of my life I want to be someone's hero who pointed them to the true hero Jesus Christ!
Whose your hero? Are you somebody's hero? I'm sure it's hard to see by the depiction of heros in our culture but I'd say if you're in the trenches for anyone and for God you ARE A HERO!
I love you with all my heart
Tina Martina Putney
Last weekend we drove to Wisconsin to hopefully become someone's hero. Whether they'd consider us this or not is not what I'm after it's the fact that we practiced Jesus self-sacrificial love that matters. But let me back up a little bit to Thursday. We met my dad for lunch for the first time in three years.
From previous posts you know that we have had a very difficult relationship. After an almost three year drought of communication God prompted me to reach out in love. This was not an easy thing to do but I learned the meaning of 1 Corinthians 13 through this process. Love keeps no records of wrongs. So as I was getting ready to me meet my dad God relayed this message through a hero of mine! A fellow youth leader and I were talking about this during our retreat and I'm so glad we did because it put me back on track. I was able to focus again on showing love. but what is love?
No hallmark explanation here, to me it's going the extra mile or as we like to say in our home "going first" The lunch with my dad was as example of this. As I reached out my hands to my dad I raised my hands to Heaven and they came back to me in surrender. God had planned this all along. But because I went first I'm able to receive his blessing even if it looks scary or anything but at the time. The blessing is in the surrender! The real gift is the submission to God's will for your life! That's the only time in your life that you will ever feel you are doing the right thing. I know, I just experienced this! Only when we submit to God's will do we ever feel truly confident we are where we're supposed to be. But it's not easy and God never said it would be! It wasn't easy for Jesus either! But instead of keeping records of wrongs he extended his hands to his enemies raised his hands to Heaven and the answer was complete surrender. Because I was able to practice God's self-sacrificial love to my dad I was also able to show it to a dear friend.
My friend lives far from us but we drove to and from lifest all weekend! It was a great lineup especially Saturday night! From Matt Maher all the way to Skillet we were bound to have a great time!! As Zechariah was working stage crew he text me asking if there was anyone our friend would want to bring and immediately I thought of someone. So Zechariah and Nathan went for a drive and picked up this friend. Why did they do it? We were practicing Jesus self-sacrificial love! Luckily our car was a rental so all the driving ended up being fine but honestly that's not what we were thinking about. We were thinking about the memories being made! Instead of our friend going home the next day and just trying to explain her excitement over seeing Skillet live for the first time we wanted her to share that experience with someone special!! Hopefully what we communicated to her last weekend was there is nothing we wouldn't do to show you we love you!
Gas and food is not cheap but sometimes God hands you his will on a silver platter and it's up to you to accept it or reject it. To accept it would mean possible hardship on you (more like guaranteed) but the greater reward is the people he wants to reach through your obedience. To reject it means you're choosing to focus on yourself and take the easy way out (which is Satan's choice). I hope that in my life there's several examples I can point to that shows the first response. I know you'll catch the negative reactions and responses but in the end of my life I want to be someone's hero who pointed them to the true hero Jesus Christ!
Whose your hero? Are you somebody's hero? I'm sure it's hard to see by the depiction of heros in our culture but I'd say if you're in the trenches for anyone and for God you ARE A HERO!
I love you with all my heart
Tina Martina Putney
Thursday, July 2, 2015
A lot of firsts and overcoming fears!
Rock Ridge was amazing for so many reasons the most important is the fact that I could even go! My youth group was taking a 5 day camping trip to northern Minnesota and I didn't think I would be able to go but I signed up just in case. It was a much needed vacation indeed. If you've been to the boundary waters you will love Rock Ridge! From Saturday to Wednesday I challenged myself, tried different adventures and hung out with amazing youth and adults! It was a once in a lifetime kind of week!
Saturday we got to Rock Ridge in Ely MN to a very happy group of leaders. We were on a bus for hours and we were all tired but nonetheless we were out on adventures right away! The first experience was zip lining! I and a good friend of mine were pretty scared to try it at first but finally we ended up going for it! I was terrified and literally felt like my body was in shock when I climbed up the bridge to jump onto the line. Petrified I asked the guide a few questions and finally just jumped. I went from terrified to gliding through the air. It was great! I was zooming but I think I've had enough of that thrill to last me a while. I'm not a big fan of heights! The whole time though I was safe even if I was in mid air. The next day we went dog scootering! If you have never heard of this we used huskies! I kept telling people they made a dream come true. I love huskies you should ask Zechariah how much sometime! He'll tell you some funny stories!
So we hooked our huskies in front of a scooter and took off on a trail through the woods! My huskie was called T and man he was just crazy. Like Nathan he just wanted to move! Every time we stopped or slowed down he would get so antsy to keep going. I even lost control of the scooter a couple of times! Not going to lie the hills were not fun and downhill was scary! Again I was safe there was plenty of people there to help out should anything have happened! That afternoon we went tubing down the river. It was fun and relaxing for a while but then I was getting bored. Sitting or laying in a tube for hours doesn't sound like my greatest version of fun! Tuesday we played Canoe Olympics and they were so fun and intense!
So I learned how to paddle a canoe! I never had the pleasure of paddling one before and definitely freaked out the first time I was in it but after awhile it was pretty great! We played games with the canoes, tipped one another, played tug of war it was really great! All of the above adventures I've never done before. I didn't know I could do half of what I did in 5 days! This week was in my opinion all about overcoming big fears! One of them being leaving Nathan for about a week for the first time.
Of all the awesome experiences my favorite have been hearing that Nathan did just fine this past week. He's walking and it's just amazing to watch him learn all these new things. While I was gone and couldn't provide for him God came through just like he said he would! To those that graciously watched my little man this week I'm so eternally grateful! You taught me a very valuable lesson. Nathan would be just fine without me. He would grow, eat, play, sleep because he's a baby that's what they do. But this week I have been praying so much for God to move and he has in really big ways!
He showed me I have nothing to fear. From zip line, dog scootering, tubing, paddling a canoe etc. God's hand covered it all. He also showed me that I don't have to fear the youth and leaders I serve alongside with. I was able to open up to a lot of people and it's been amazing to be able to trust. Trust doesn't come easy for me as I'm sure is the same for many others. To trust people with your heart is a very beautiful thing! I think everyone may have one friend like that!
Recently a beautiful friendship has developed between me and the leaders that I feel has been 3 years in the making! Through my car accident God has really knitted us with Lisa and is deepening my friendship with Felis!! During the week both Felis and I felt we needed to stay back at camp instead of go with our group. The most beautiful conversations happened! I'm so shocked we had things to say after hours of talking. I'm starting to understand this is how relationships and friendships are supposed to work. When Zechariah and I first started dating I was anxious to know how we could find anything to say to each other after spending so much time together but God always came through! Our last day at Rock Ridge I was really torn! I wanted to go home but I didn't at the same time!
All week leading up to Rock Ridge I said I was going to have a terrible time because I was going to be crying a lot over missing Nathan. I did miss Nathan immensely especially when I saw the 11 month old!! Somehow though God came through and made this week so wonderful and I learned so much about myself through it I just didn't need to! What I thought going into this week didn't happen! God had other plans and they came through and I ended up forming relationships that I want to keep deepening! My prayer is that we would all give up our plans or expectations and take on God's! When we do suddenly what we thought would happen is the farthest thing that does!! The greatest shock to me though of all is the meeting I'm going to be having next week!
In Altoona we are going to have lunch with my dad! For the first time in 3 years I feel ready. The last time we saw each other was July 30, 2012 in a courtroom. Please for those that pray be praying for us as we meet. Pray for the atmosphere and conversation to be exactly as it should be! 3 years ago I signed papers that cut any communication and now we're meeting face to face! I can't equate this to anything but our wonderful and great God! Last week has been one of those weeks I want to remember for a long time!
I want to remember the relationships formed, the conversations had, adventures took, food ate, times with God, and last but certainly not least the absolutely beautiful scenery!!! If you ever have a chance to visit Ely, MN it's so worth the drive!!! Thank you to everyone that's made our stay so great!! I'm so looking forward to visiting again next year!!!
God is great that's about all I have to say!
I love you with all my heart
Tina Martina Putney
Saturday we got to Rock Ridge in Ely MN to a very happy group of leaders. We were on a bus for hours and we were all tired but nonetheless we were out on adventures right away! The first experience was zip lining! I and a good friend of mine were pretty scared to try it at first but finally we ended up going for it! I was terrified and literally felt like my body was in shock when I climbed up the bridge to jump onto the line. Petrified I asked the guide a few questions and finally just jumped. I went from terrified to gliding through the air. It was great! I was zooming but I think I've had enough of that thrill to last me a while. I'm not a big fan of heights! The whole time though I was safe even if I was in mid air. The next day we went dog scootering! If you have never heard of this we used huskies! I kept telling people they made a dream come true. I love huskies you should ask Zechariah how much sometime! He'll tell you some funny stories!
So we hooked our huskies in front of a scooter and took off on a trail through the woods! My huskie was called T and man he was just crazy. Like Nathan he just wanted to move! Every time we stopped or slowed down he would get so antsy to keep going. I even lost control of the scooter a couple of times! Not going to lie the hills were not fun and downhill was scary! Again I was safe there was plenty of people there to help out should anything have happened! That afternoon we went tubing down the river. It was fun and relaxing for a while but then I was getting bored. Sitting or laying in a tube for hours doesn't sound like my greatest version of fun! Tuesday we played Canoe Olympics and they were so fun and intense!
So I learned how to paddle a canoe! I never had the pleasure of paddling one before and definitely freaked out the first time I was in it but after awhile it was pretty great! We played games with the canoes, tipped one another, played tug of war it was really great! All of the above adventures I've never done before. I didn't know I could do half of what I did in 5 days! This week was in my opinion all about overcoming big fears! One of them being leaving Nathan for about a week for the first time.
Of all the awesome experiences my favorite have been hearing that Nathan did just fine this past week. He's walking and it's just amazing to watch him learn all these new things. While I was gone and couldn't provide for him God came through just like he said he would! To those that graciously watched my little man this week I'm so eternally grateful! You taught me a very valuable lesson. Nathan would be just fine without me. He would grow, eat, play, sleep because he's a baby that's what they do. But this week I have been praying so much for God to move and he has in really big ways!
He showed me I have nothing to fear. From zip line, dog scootering, tubing, paddling a canoe etc. God's hand covered it all. He also showed me that I don't have to fear the youth and leaders I serve alongside with. I was able to open up to a lot of people and it's been amazing to be able to trust. Trust doesn't come easy for me as I'm sure is the same for many others. To trust people with your heart is a very beautiful thing! I think everyone may have one friend like that!
Recently a beautiful friendship has developed between me and the leaders that I feel has been 3 years in the making! Through my car accident God has really knitted us with Lisa and is deepening my friendship with Felis!! During the week both Felis and I felt we needed to stay back at camp instead of go with our group. The most beautiful conversations happened! I'm so shocked we had things to say after hours of talking. I'm starting to understand this is how relationships and friendships are supposed to work. When Zechariah and I first started dating I was anxious to know how we could find anything to say to each other after spending so much time together but God always came through! Our last day at Rock Ridge I was really torn! I wanted to go home but I didn't at the same time!
All week leading up to Rock Ridge I said I was going to have a terrible time because I was going to be crying a lot over missing Nathan. I did miss Nathan immensely especially when I saw the 11 month old!! Somehow though God came through and made this week so wonderful and I learned so much about myself through it I just didn't need to! What I thought going into this week didn't happen! God had other plans and they came through and I ended up forming relationships that I want to keep deepening! My prayer is that we would all give up our plans or expectations and take on God's! When we do suddenly what we thought would happen is the farthest thing that does!! The greatest shock to me though of all is the meeting I'm going to be having next week!
In Altoona we are going to have lunch with my dad! For the first time in 3 years I feel ready. The last time we saw each other was July 30, 2012 in a courtroom. Please for those that pray be praying for us as we meet. Pray for the atmosphere and conversation to be exactly as it should be! 3 years ago I signed papers that cut any communication and now we're meeting face to face! I can't equate this to anything but our wonderful and great God! Last week has been one of those weeks I want to remember for a long time!
I want to remember the relationships formed, the conversations had, adventures took, food ate, times with God, and last but certainly not least the absolutely beautiful scenery!!! If you ever have a chance to visit Ely, MN it's so worth the drive!!! Thank you to everyone that's made our stay so great!! I'm so looking forward to visiting again next year!!!
God is great that's about all I have to say!
I love you with all my heart
Tina Martina Putney