Memorial Box Monday...er... Tuesday

Oh my goodness, am I ever in serious bloggy trouble now. I found and fell in love with another blog, as if I don't already have entirely way to much on my plate and more than enough blog reading to waste entirely way to much time on. Seriously though, it is an awesome blog and the lady who writes it lives a life very similar to the one that I dream of having one day so.... needless to say I am hooked. I think its kinda obvious at this point that I am hooked on MckMama's Not Me Monday, and now I am hooked on Memorial Box Monday. You can read all about it at A Place Called Simplicity.

http://aplacecalledsimplicity.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-about-memorial-box-mondays-aka-we.html

Basically though, it is all about saving little items to remind you of the fact that we serve a miracle-working, mountain-moving, awe-inspiring, gasp-giving God. (Isn't that the most amazing concept to try and grasp!!!) It is time to sit back and reflect over the things God has done for little 'ole me. I am going to embrace this because I know that I have fallen short in this area. It is my prayer from today forward that I will never overlook what God is doing in my life. So I have spent quite a bit of time reflecting over my life and thinking about how I've seen God move in and around me. For my very first memorial post I would like to introduce you to a common every day ink pen. It has the Philips Medical Systems emblem on it.

Please excuse the fact I don't have a photograph right now.. I'm having technical issues trying to get my camera and iphoto to communicate with each other. (By the way, if you happen to be a mac user, I seriously need your help. $1,000+ pictures trapped and that is not an exaggeration in the least!)

Ahem...Anyways... a philips ink pen... how strange!?! I know, but let me tell you the story that goes with it. When I was a young child my parents never attended church. The only time I ever went was when we visited my great grandparents at their winter home in Florida. At best that was once a year. My parents both did not know the Lord and had no desire to go to church at all. I never heard a Bible story, I didn't go to Sunday School, or Vacation Bible School. I did not know who God was or who Jesus was. Outside of one solitary visit to a church with my great-grandparents in Florida as a young child I had no concept of anything spiritual.

When I was in first grade my Dad graduated college and got his very first job since being discharged from the army, (yeah I was an army brat... little known fact about me.) We moved to Tupelo Mississippi and my Mom hated it. Oh my goodness did she ever hate it, she begged my Dad to take the first job offer out of there. "I don't care where we go," she said, "ANYWHERE but here." It didn't take long for Dad to get another job offer, we were in Mississippi less than a year before he was transfered to work in the position where he still works today. It doesn't seem like a big deal but it is to me. When my Dad got out of college he could have gone anywhere in the whole country to work, but he ended up in Mississippi. He could have been any number of places that my Mom would have loved, but instead they were in a place my Mom hated, they then could have been transferred anywhere in the world, but we ended up smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt. A family that never went to church before was surrounded by a bazillion churches.

I am who I am today all because of the job my Dad accepted when I was in 2nd grade. If it wasn't for the philips company I never would have had a sweet old lady teach me year after year in Sunday School things like, "don't let your left hand know when your right hand is doing something good." I never would have been given the great fortune to make a good friend who would take me to church when my parents wouldn't. I wouldn't have attended church camp with that friend and meet Jesus as my eternal Savior. I wouldn't have been able to attend an awesome Bible believing, Bible preaching church out in the middle of a fescue field that would help me to grow and spiritually blossom.

Who I am today is because of my friends in high school, my mentors from church, and a few really awesome teachers, and to a certain extent a sweet blonde haired girl who rode my afternoon bus in middle school. If it wasn't for Philips Medical Systems I would have been influenced by a completely different set of people. I would be a completely different person. Amazing! Looking back I see that God most definitely was pursuing me, even from birth. How else would a girl whose family's roots are deeply embedded in upstate New York, be birthed on an army base in the deep south, and later end up smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt? If that is not a testimony to the fact that God loves me and pursues me I don't know what is. I just LOVE it!

Trust me, I was and still am to a certain degree a very wild, strong willed, child. I so very easily could have become a very different person. I can name certain people who have had such an important role in helping me become me, without them I would be very different. I know, that I know, that I know God was actively pursuing me, putting things into motion before I was even conceived, that would lead me to where I am today. Lord Jesus I thank you from the bottom of my heart for pursuing me, before I was even born, and allowing me to be put exactly where I needed to be to learn about You and Your mercy, and Your grace, and Your love for me. Amazing! !!!

Sidenote: The best part though is that God didn't pursue just me, He pursues you also! I challenge you to consider how God has pursued you, and if you have yet to find Jesus as your Savior, the One who paid the penalty for the sin debt you never could pay, consider... is it possible that He is pursuing you even now... ?

Anyways, I thought it would be fitting to start my memorial box by placing in it something that would be foundational to who I am today, something that directly related to my salvation. Who would have thunk it, God used a global healthcare company to land me in the one place God knew I needed to be in order to become me.