When Two Different Worlds Collide: A look at Love

love  |ləv| (n)-  An Intense feeling of deep affection.

The other day I had the pleasure of going to the Daily Grind for some coffee and blogging (The Daily Grind is a small coffee shop in Boerne, for those of you who do not dwell here.)  And as I was sitting there I was confronted with two different scenarios.  At one table in the small coffee shop sat a family of three; a mom, a dad and a teenage boy about 15 or 16.  they talked together and they prayed together.  From what I could see, they seemed very close knit.  My writing was interrupted by another table in which a girl sat with her father.  She yelled at him while he tried desperately to settle things without too much disruption.  She wouldn't give him any chances to talk, and when she did, she quickly interrupted him.  After about 10 minutes of this she got up and stormed out, towards her car I figured.

I sat there, overcome with thought and realized that this would be a great blog entry.  But what would be the moral of this story?  I couldn't figure it out.  So I pulled out my trusty Macbook and quickly typed some things.  I decided I'd put the blog on hold (Or saved it as a draft, whichever you prefer to say.)  And pray about it.  Well, today is the day of valentines and as I was heading over to the Daily Grind.. Again..  It hit me!

Looking back at those two instances, I noticed that one of the lacked what the other one possessed; love.  Of course, I don't know how that girl actually felt about her father, but at that moment, all I saw was bitterness and feelings of betrayal.   While, in the other family, I could see the Love.   And since today is valentines day, or the day of Love I thought I'd write a few lines on it.  Real Love is a very powerful bond, that is a huge helper in the preservation of families.  But I'm not talking about that kind of Love that only, well, loves for selfish reasons.  I'm talking about selfless Love that allows for sacrificing between people or in families.  That girl wasn't sacrificing a whole lot for her father.  She was overcome with selfish ambition.  Selfish love will eventually bring destruction while selfless love preserves unity.

So with that thought for the day, Hope everyone has a fantastic Valentines Day!

Quote of the Day:

Regret looks behind, Worry looks around and Faith looks upward. 

Yes, I know this sounds somewhat philosophical, and for the sake of intelligence, I will say it is.  But if you really stop to ponder what this means you will realize how truly simply it is to comprehend.  Let me be the first to say this quote does an outstanding job of pointing out my humanly flaws.  First, I am one of those people who likes to cling to the past, although I shouldn't, I tend to find myself regretting one thing or another.  And when I regret things in the past, it normally changes my attitude for the future.  I also have a habit or worrying, OR maybe I just over think about things way to much? Anyway, the point is, worrying does not add a single day to your life.  The only thing it really does to you is either make you 1) really paranoid or 2) Mr. or Mrs. Negative.  And neither of these are very attractive character qualities.  But what about the last part of this quote?  Faith looks upward.  Notice, faith doesn't worry, faith doesn't regret, faith doesn't try to make something from nothing; faith simply looks upward.  I think there are two realizations that we need to come to. First, the past is called the past for a reason, the past is to help you learn from mistakes, not make you constantly regret them.  Instead of worrying about and regretting the past, we should be living in the present and anticipating the future.  Also, we need to remember that GOD holds the present and the future. . . why worry?

"Who of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to your life?  Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you. . ."

God is in control.  So what do we have to worry about?  Now, that we have canceled regret and worry, we are left with the last.. Faith looks upward.  Let us look upward with faith!


On Saturday I had a really close friend of mine come over and we sat on the trampoline talking about "Just girl stuff"  And as we kept talking, the conversation began to evolve into something more deep.  We talked about the past, and how we both have serious issues with 'Just letting go'.  The past is an awesome thing.. but it's the past for a reason.  We can't do it over, so why spend time thinking about it constantly?  We both agreed that we needed to let it go and anticipate the future as a field for accomplishing God's will.  Don't regret.  Don't worry.  Simply. . . Look upward.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

It’s that time of year again. Time for cold weather, Christmas shopping and the ‘guilty face’ you have to give your daughter when she innocently asks ‘what were you doing at toys-r-us?’.  Yes, it’s hard not to love the Christmas season, unless of course your one of the following people:

1) The Grinch
2) Ebenezer Scrooge

 But as this is doubtful, lets carry on.  The other day I was in Wal-mart and my eyes fell upon one of those flashy screens with the sole intent of catching your attention and keeping it.  “Give her Joy all year long with the new Ipod Shuffle” the words read and as I stared at it I realized how silly this ad was.  Treating this new and improved piece of technology as if it were the answer to all our problems.  I would first like to ask you this question: can earthly things really give us everlasting joy?  Let me be the first to say no.   I, myself, have relentlessly begged for things, claiming I would ‘never ask for anything ever again’ and assuming I would be given never ending joy.
Sure, I was content for a while until..  Something new came out.  Yikes!  It’s difficult to be constantly bombarded with new paraphernalia and not want it.  This is where real joy enters to picture.  Real joy?  Is there such thing?  Yes, real joy comes as a result of living your life completely for Christ, or ‘dying to self’.  Think about it, it is our selfish nature that gives us a desire for all of these ‘things’, so if we ‘died to ourselves’ we wouldn’t be affected by this insatiable desire for new stuff.  We would be content in spiritual joy and fulfillment.  So what does it mean to die to yourself?  In my view, it means to give yourself completely to the Lord, and ridding yourself of your selfish desires.  God is the only person we can get this joy and fulfillment from, often times we search the world for things that will satisfy us and like always, we are never truly satisfied.  We should search to completely follow Christ and seek our complete and total joy from him and him alone.   On that note, I will end with this seemingly relevant song: ‘Tis the season to be jolly fa la la la la la la la’.

Have a very merry Christmas and God bless!

A Thanksgiving Tribute

And again, Thanksgiving has come and gone, but just because the day is over doesn't mean the spirit should be also.  We may not 'chow down' on turkey everyday but we can still choose to be thankful everyday.  We should take every opportunity to show gratitude.

What did we do this Thanksgiving?

We left early Thursday morning, about 8:30.  A little later than I had originally hoped but hey, we're the Liberto's remember?  I should've expected nothing more.  Anyway, we were out by 8:30 and we started traveling to Houston.  I was content, we listened to Narnia in between reading and listening to music, and the trip just flew by!  Although, for us yearly Missouri travelers, the trip was nothing.  We were supposed to eat about one o' clock and in hopes of not getting there late, we were racing against time.  Don't worry though, no speed limits were crossed.  We arrived just in time, about 12:45 actually, were we lucky or what!  And get this, we didn't even get lost!  This was a big thing for us.  Those maps are pretty complicated, believe me.  Well, the food was absolutely delish and I ate a lot, as always on Thanksgiving day. After this we all went outside to enjoy the weather, I was patiently waiting for it to get colder.  And just my luck, it starts pouring rain.  But this was the fun part!  Running back to the house, occaisonally taking refuge under large trees. I took refuge under Stephen's 40 dollar hat. :)  Don't worry, It didn't last very long at all and we headed back out over to the fake, manmade lake.  I believe 'Unswimmable' is an accurate term for it.  We hung out there for a while and then in the car and off to Huntsville!  The remainder of the trip was more than fun, I had recieved the cold weather I wanted and I spent the rest of my Thanksgiving break with people I really enjoy being around.  We made fires, watched movies, went bowling, jumped on the trampoline with sleeping bags and made tons of unforgettable memories.  I realized how grateful I was to have such awesome friends and I hope we will continue to be friends.  Thanks, guys, I love you all. :)

Thanksgiving comes only once a year, but this doesn't mean we should set aside only this day to be thankful.  We should wake up everymorning with an 'attitude of gratitude', we always have something to be thankful about, even if we don't realize it.  I can say I'm thankful for my family, my awesome friends who never cease to be there for me, my education, my life.  The fact that I have a bed to sleep in at night and food to eat in the morning.  But most of all, The unescapable fact that I have Jesus, who cares for me so much that he would die the most excruciating death for me.  This is what I'm thankful for; and I try my best to express my thanks as often as I can, although this can get tough.  It's can sometimes be hard to act thankful when the circumstances are giving you no reason to be thankful.  We have to steer away from finding our happiness in life alone, when we start to find our joy through Christ we will find there are many things to be thankful for.

Be thankful and I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving day!

In memory of JP Farrell

As I was pacing my room with my thinking cap sitting lightly on top of my head, trying to come up with a new idea for a blog.  Then it hit me, I'll write a blog in memory of Mr. Farrell.  It was either this or song.  Which I'm still considering doing.

I didn't get to say what I had wanted at his funeral, not because I didn't get the chance, but because I am one of those more emotional beings.  I could see myself up there choking out all my words.  Wouldn't of gone to well.  But there are plenty of things I could say, and I hope to do that right now.

I had started playing guitar at least 4 years ago, and becase of the way it was taught to me I never enjoyed it.  After a while, I gave up and the guitar was left in it's case to collect dust.  Well, God had a plan through all this, He knew only too well that the guitar would not remain there.  It was about a year later when my sisters started taking violin lessons from Mr. Farrell or 'Mistow Fawwoll' as Jordan would pronounce it.  My mom took this as an excellent opportunity to get me back on guitar again and so she signed me up as well.  I remember the first lesson quite clearly, before it began he made sure I knew that guitar was his worst instrument.  You can imagine my surprise when he started playing. . . my mouth dropped open.  If guitar was his worst instrument, I thought Then I must really be terrible at it.

As the lessons continued I began to find that love I used to have for the guitar.  He became more of my friend,  he shared his love of music with me. Something none of my previous teachers could do.  Everytime he walked in our home we could see the joy that radiated through him, even amidst all the pain.  He was always  patient with all the three of us.  And let me tell you, that is not always easy to do.

After he became sick, the lessons stopped, but we never stopped praying.  He seemed to be getting worse, and I prayed and prayed that somehow he would be miraculously healed.  Well, this wasn't God's plan and he passed away a few weeks later.  I remember getting in the car and recieving the news, took me a couple seconds to process before it sank in, and even then I'm not sure I actually believed it.  Before this, I never had someone this close to me pass away.  We attended the funeral a few days later and I think this is when it finally sank in, I couldn't help crying but I had to remind myself that he is in Heaven now, in a new body without pain.  And this was comforting. 

Although we didn't know him very long he made a huge impact on every single one of our lives.  He taught me what it meant to be joyful even through the hard times because our joy comes from the Lord.  He brought back my love for music and I'm not gonna quit, because I know he wouldn't want me to.  We all feel very blessed that we had the wonderful privelage of knowing such a wonderful man. He was truly a blessing to us. We miss him but we will see him again, and I feel comforted by that.  We love you Mr. Farrell!

Conner

Good and Evil

The other day I was wholeheartedly taking part in our online discussions (for class).  And like always our conversations can get pretty heated.  Well, for those who know me would probably guess that I did a lot of arguing on my part. And you are right.  We were talking about God's association with good and evil.  Some people had good feedback that I agreed with, but some, I couldn't help raising my hand and 'rebutting', as we would say in debate terms. 

It is in God's holy nature that disallows him to do anything evil.  When he created man, we disobeyed him and with that disobedience comes consequences.  So instead of us being perfect and sinless we are fallen.

Genesis 6:5
'The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.'

We were blessed by God with the gift of free will.  We chose wrong and now have to pay the consequences of being a sinful people as opposed to perfection.  But we hear everyday about God's interacting with his children.  I've had experiences that make me realize the relationship I have with God.  In fact, he desires to have a relationship with us.  But I am a sinner? How can he associate himself with me and my sin nature?  We pay the consequences of having to live in a world run by sin.  But we as christians are not called to be of this world, we are called to glorify God in a world that does not glorify God.

However the Bible does say that when we reject God long enough he will give us over to a depraved mind.

Romans 1:28
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

Because we are fallen we cannot help but sin, and God notices this.  He does call us to be like him and as christians we must strive to do this, but because of our sinful nature this can become difficult.
One girl stated what I believed to be true; That He is a God of good and when one of his children continues rejection they are given over to their wickedness and God will depart.  For those who are truly evil have no God in their lives.  This is when another girl says: 'But God is everywhere because of his omnipresent nature.' Well, this is when I knew I had to say something.  I agree with her somewhat, God is omnipresent but he cannot be where there is truly evil and no desire to repent and be forgiven.  To support my statement I brought up Law and Order.  I didn't use specific examples but I pointed out the evilness of human nature.  These people are truly evil.  And this is portrayed through their heinous acts.  The Bible says; The devil roams the earth looking for someone to devour.  When we continue to reject God he will give us over to a depraved mind, the devil will come and seek to devour us.  He can associate himself with those who have a desire to be like him. We repent and ask for forgiveness. We love him.  We truly want to live like Christ lives.  He cannot associate himself with the wicked people who reject him.  Pure evil is the absence of God.

1 Peter 5:8
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

Everything Happens for a Reason.

      A little longer than a year ago I was on vacation, and my father and I were swimming.  'I'll race you' He says. Oh dad, you and your competitiveness.  But of course, I agree, and off we swim. Well, The edge of that pool came a little quicker than I had intentionally planned and *BAM* I crash mouth first into the concrete side of the swimming area. Well this is when  I felt my mouth and realized that half of my front tooth was missing,  and we hurriedly went up to the room. For the remainder of the evening I found it hard to even look at myself in mirror and I repeatedly told myself 'I can't believe this happened' 'This has to be a dream'. Well now a year later my tooth has been fixed and we can go living our happy lives. Well, at least until Jordan smashes her finger in the door. Our lives are of course still happy but at that moment we were only thinking about Jordan. Unfortunately, this was not just another 'smashed finger' that all kids get at sometime or another, this was just a little more serious. Her nail and little of her finger came off.  Don't worry, i'll spare you the rest of the gruesome details. She's fine now, and we are livin life again.


I suppose the point of these two short stories was that everything does happen for a reason, God engineers it that way. The other day my mom read me something from her one of many books. It says that God allows these things to happen in hopes of 'breaking' us, so we will become more dependent on him. These shouldn't be time's to forsake God, but come closer to him.

I'm from the country, and I like it that way.

Well you can probably already guess what this post is going to say by my self explanatory title BUT I'm going to write it anyway, it is in my will to make you suffer.

I wasn't born in the country, in fact.. I was born in the middle of San Antonio, Texas, and if you've ever been there you know that it is anything BUT country.  But I did grow up in a country atmosphere, going to my nana and papa's farm in Missouri sometimes 3 times a year and usually staying for long periods of time. About 5 years ago we moved to good 'ol Boerne, Texas where it is definitely more country, and I like it.

This weekend was Boerne's annual Kendall County Fair, so I forced my awesome daddy to take me and my sister. Well, he did.. of course, and upon arrival we headed to the exhibit hall to check out the sewing projects my sister had entered into the contest. She did extraordinary, placing in everything she entered! After this we headed to the pavillion where the dancing took place so we could get our country dancing on! Yeehaw! Although I'm grateful it was not inside cause if that music was any louder I think my ears might have fallen off.  After about 2 or 3 songs we decided to give our weary ears a break and head to the rodeo. Well I guess it was just our luck, we walk right in between these 2 trucks to get a better view, and what do ya know? Hello there, familiar faces! Yes, we ran into a couple speech and debate families sitting together and decided to join them. Then I went up to the stand where Mr. Mack was doing the commentary for the rodeo, cause the rest of the girls were up there. We watched for about an hour and a half, and when the rodeo ended we said goodbyes to friends and walked back to the dancing pavillion.  Much to my dismay, we didn't get to stay. I was all ready too, clad in cowboy boots and my awesome country belt. But lucky for me I managed to convince my parents to take us Sunday too! (Which was just as fun, although this time we had the whole family) We danced again and then watched bullriding for about 2 hours. So all in all, it was a lot of fun! Hanging with friends and doing what I love to do. Until next time Kendall county fair, until next time!

A weekend at good ol' Garner State Park.

Now, one of the first things you should know here is, I've NEVER been Garner. . . Ever. This seems silly since we live fairly close but I've never actually been given the privelege of visiting. My dad thought for sure he had been before, but upon arrival he realized he had been mistaken. Well, we didn't just one day decide, out of the blue, to pack up and head to Garner. Yes my parents often do things without really planning, but this was not one of those times.  Also, they didn't even have to do any of the planning.. I did! Yes, normally when I try to plan things for my parents it doesn't turn out to great. But it did this time! Which is strange considering I planned this whole thing with a 16 year old boy. I'm also quite surprised that my parents even agreed to it. My mom normally likes to speak to another adult when I attempt to plan things for her, but this time the only 'other adult' my mom got to talk to was my dad, and it still turned out great!

So its about 1, on Saturday, and we FINALLY leave. I had texted him a little before this with a 'We'll be there about 2:30' message.  Well, as you've probably guessed.. this didn't happen. We didn't end up getting there til about 5:00. So much for 2 whole days. Only joking, it was absolutely fine the way it turned out.  2 hours later, we are pulling in the entrance of Garner State park and it is time to make a phone call.

"Hey!"
"Hey, We're here!"

the remainder of the conversation was used to give me directions, and after about 5 "Wait, what?" 's and "Say that again?"'s we finally figured out where we were going.  After this we arrived at their campsite and made formal 'country-style' introductions.  Then my sisters and I, Stephen, Julia and Jeremiah all piled in our small minivan and began 'the tour'!  We concluded the 'show and tell' by taking a small detour to a 'swimming hole' where Jordan informed us that she no longer wanted to swim.  She never told us her reasoning for this but it wasn't hard to figure out. She was embarrassed.  It took my dad to finally coerce her to take the plunge.  I unfortunately didn't swim because I was wearing a nice pair of jeans and didn't want to risk ruining them. (I look back now and realize how silly I was for thinking this.)  Why didn't I jump in?  I was being a total party pooper and I'm not exactly sure what my problem was.  Normally, this would've been a no brainer. Living out in the country, rash decisions like this are not only normal, but.. expected.  I regret this decision, but it's over and done with and next time hopefully i'll do less thinking and more doing.

The remainder of the trip consisted of country dancing and lots of swimming, it was so much fun! We even get to return for Thanksgiving. Hello freezing cold water!

Well Garner, until next time!

Dear Guitar.

Dear Guitar, I started playing you about 4 years ago and I have enjoyed every moment. Sure, it was tough and challenging, but what is life without a few roadblocks? Sometimes I felt the need to just sit down and write a beautiful, thought provoking song, and you were there to help me complete this. There were times when I felt like giving up, but I didn't, and now look where I am! I have met people who have a love for this beautiful instrument, and to watch them succeed and become better every day gives me hope. I have a passion to continue playing you. To learn new chords and expand in my knowledge. To grow as a young musician. The trials are only there to make me stronger, not to encourage me to give up. I am not a failure. Also, thank you Jesus for giving me this passion and this talent. Thanks mom and dad, for always pushing me harder and then listening when I have a new song to play. Thank you to my guitar teachers who have helped through the mistakes and watched me succeed because they knew I could do it. Thank you Music, Thank you guitar. :)

Love,

Me.

Just Another Day in the Liberto Household.

Today, I thought I would give you a small 'Tour' of our normal days. Now, when I say normal I don't mean we act normal, but this daily routine has become normal.

At about, 8:00 in the morning, my mother wakes up to enjoy her coffee and a book before her time of relaxation is suddenly finished as Jordan comes walking out, sleepily. This is when she expects my mom to get her some cereal because she can't reach it herself. A little while later Sydney emerges form her room looking like a dead man walking (Or Woman). After eating their cereal, they both run off to find an interesting activity they can both engage in. This is when I wake up, It is now about 9:30 and I start my day out with some Bible reading and then I wash my face and exit my room, heading for. . . the coffee maker. After this the day continues, Jordan and Sydney play happily until they find something to argue about, this is when I intervene. My dad is working in his office and my mom is at her computer, checking her email or working on the business. I always find entertainment by playing my guitar, drawing, writing, reading or maybe watching a movie (But that doesn't happen to often during the day).

As the day is coming to a close and 'almost' everyone begins to wind down (The girls normally gain more energy during this time period) we sit down as a family to have our nightly Bible study. Everything goes great until the 5 year old gets fidgety and begins asking repetitively if she can leave and go find something else to do. After this is over we close for the night, everyone goes to their bedrooms. My mom retires to her computer and my dad will watch some TV while he stretches, then off to bed. The lights are turned off as sleep awaits us. Until tomorrow!

Simplicity.

Sometimes you just have to stop and enjoy the simpler things in life, now, I'm not saying you should bow to the next seemingly unimportant object you see. But merely stop taking advantage of the smaller things. For example, today I thought I would spend my time taking pictures of small things, that don't often to get to enjoy the spotlight. A few of the subjects chosen were:

-A lamp ( I thought it was pretty)

- and various picture assortments around our lovely home.

These may seem weird, but you might find it truly inspiring what a simple picture can do. Some of you might be thinking right about now. . . 'Why would anyone take a picture of a lamp?' But ask yourselves this, how would life be different without them? Lets say a lamp represents electricity, Where would we be without it? Sure, we would be fine during the day because we have an awesome God who supplies us with natural light, but he also designed it so that there would be a separation between light and darkness. So, in simpler terms, when it gets dark we need something to help us see. Now, these days they have many different lamps. Some are for decorating and some are to light the darkness, some go on the ceiling and some stay on the ground. I, myself, am happy that they make lamps with more. . . flavor, I guess you could say, because taking pictures of boring lamps would definitely be. . . Well. . . boring. Right now you might be asking yourself, why is she blabbing on about lamps? I don't care! For clarification: it's not the lamp I want you to take from this, but the picture it paints.

Don't take advantage of the little things, appreciate them.