Favorite Song Friday #2 - Overcome

The song that I want to share as one of my favorites this week is "Overcome" by Jeremy Camp. This song came out way back in 2010, but it's just one of those songs you can close your eyes and listen to and really feel the meaning of it in your heart.

Jeremy Camp is one of my all time favorite artists, if not my real favorite. I love his story and I love his music and I love the truth and conviction that he shares in his songs.

I have seen Jeremy Camp in concert twice. Once with Trent and my BFF, Lauren, and once with my Mom. Both times, he sang this song, and it was one of the most special parts of the evening. When he gets the part in the song where he sings, "We will overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony, we will overcome" several times over and over, everyone in the crowd hold hands and raises them up and sings the words together. It is amazing how much lifting your hands and closing your eyes and singing words like that can bring you to a totally different place. I don't know how to explain it, but it's like it just makes everything okay. All that has happened and is happening to us in the world can just disappear. It's like you can feel God saying, "Don't worry. I have this under control. I know you're hurting now and sometimes life can suck, but I've got this!" (Sorry for saying "suck," Mom)

After I chose that I wanted to share this song today, I Googled what the story behind the song was, and the song was actually written by Jon Egan, who leads the Desperation Band, right after the 2007 shooting at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, the church where the band led worship. The song focuses on the fact that Christ, who is perfect, suffered and died for us, but has overcame death and we, too, can overcome our hardships here on Earth.

John 16:33 says "I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on Earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world."

In other words: 
The power of the world, the realm controlled by Satan, was defeated when Jesus accepted his Father's will to go to the Cross. He broke and defeated the power of sin and death. He brought life and immortality to light. He insured that death would not have the final say. So in the middle of sorrows and trials, we can take heart and have peace. Not because things are easy, but because the hard things of this life are temporary and are preparing for us an eternal glory. Our peace is not in the absence of strife or troubles, but in Jesus and what he has done to make our future sure! (source)

And how amazing is that!

Jeremy Camp has a book, I Still Believe, that he wrote about his life and testimony and how he came to be where he is today. One of the bigger events in his life was losing his first wife to ovarian cancer just months after they were married. Just like his songs, this book provides inspiration, insight, and encouragement to anyone who has experienced loss. I started reading this book just a few weeks before my dad passed away and finished it shortly after. It has so many comforting and thought provoking things within it that really put things into perspective, and I really recommend it to everyone.

Take a moment and close your eyes and just sit and listen to this song. I hope this song brings comfort to you as it does to me.

You can listen to the song by clicking here or watching it below.

Seated above, enthroned in the Father's love
Destined to die, poured out for all mankind

God's only Son, perfect and spotless one
He never sinned but suffered as if He did

All authority
Every victory is Yours
All authority
Every victory is Yours

Savior, worthy of honor and glory
Worthy of all our praise, You overcame
Jesus, awesome in power forever
Awesome and great is Your name, You overcame

Power in hand speaking the Father's plan
You're sending us out, light in this broken land

We will overcome by the blood of the Lamb
And the word of our testimony, everyone overcome

As a side note for my Favorite Song Fridays - I have decided that I am not going to do it every Friday. I don't want to share just ANY song that I like, I want to just share songs that really mean something to me and really are my favorites. So instead of doing it every week, when I have a song that I do want to share and post on here, I am going to dedicate Friday's as the day to share them.

Kosama Update

I started going to Kosama last May and I posted about my first and second eight week assessments. You may have noticed that I never posted another update again... I didn't necessarily stop going, but there were several reasons that I haven't posted about it again.

After the August update for my second eight weeks, my next update would have been in mid October. The problem with that was that during that time, Trent and I had spent about 3 weeks dealing with poison ivy rashes. So for four weeks, I had continued to work out like normal and then we came in contact with the poison ivy. After the first few spots showed up, I still went to work out for a few mornings because it wasn't that bad and I could still hide it under my clothes, but after it kept appearing all over places that I didn't want to have to cover up while working out (for fear of overheating if nothing else) and getting super itchy, I didn't want to go anymore because:

1) We weren't 100% sure what it was at first and I didn't want to be around other people if it was contagious, 

2) The thought of being super sweaty and itchy at the same time did not sound fun at all, and 

3) I didn't want people to think that I had leprosy or something...

My  poison ivy arms

So from the end of September through the middle of October, my exercise consisted of exercising my will power to not itch my arms and legs like crazy!

I resumed to working out in the last half of October and into November, but my heart just wasn't in it I guess. I only ended up going about twice a week and for what I was paying for my membership, that wasn't really good enough! So since I knew we were going to be gone for at least 2 weeks out of December and since January would be very busy with work, I didn't think I'd be getting my money's worth for those months either. I ended up "freezing" my membership for December and January and will resume going again in February. Which is next week!! Ahh!!

I am excited to get back to working out, but the thought of getting up at 4:15 in the morning again several times a week just makes me cringe... (I really love my sleep!) especially since it's so cold out at that time of the day!! Oh well, I guess, soon enough it will be summer again and that time of the morning will be very pleasant! :)

I'll post some more updates as I go along - I just didn't want you all to think I had flaked on my plans to work out more! ;)

Favorite Song Friday #1 - "All You've Ever Wanted"

I read quite a few blogs each day because that's a fun thing for me. Probably because they are always showing off the cool projects they do and their beautiful houses and their good ideas and I like to try to replicate what they're doing if it's something that I like. I'm not a very creative-minded person (hence the job dealing with math and numbers - just facts... not much creativity here!) but I do like to do some creative things, if someone else gives me the idea and shows me how to do it!

A lot of the blogs I read have recurring, weekly posts that have some theme: like to share about food or recipes, to share fun new products that they like, workouts they're doing, an encouraging story they've heard, etc. Here's some examples of some of the ones that pop up on my blog feed throughout the week:

Menu Monday with Lovely Little Snippets

What I'm Loving Wednesday with This Kind of Love

She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not with Michaela Noelle Designs

Workout Wednesday with Skinny Meg

Thriving Thursday with Serving Joyfully

Proverbs 31 Thursdays with Raising Mighty Arrows

Five on Friday with Hello! Happiness

Confessional Friday with A Blonde Ambition

High Five for Friday with The Small Things Blog

I have been thinking lately about a lot of songs that I like and how I occasionally like to share them on my blog. Not only to share them with my friends and family who read my posts but also so I can go back in time and see what favorite songs I had throughout time and read about why I liked them at that moment.

Therefore, in my head, Favorite Song Friday was born!

So without further ado... I bring you the first edition of Favorite Song Friday!

My first favorite is Casting Crowns' song, "All You've Ever Wanted." This song has been one of my favorites since it was released about 5 months or so ago and it has never gotten old to me. On top of just being a beautiful song (and the fact that Casting Crowns is one of my favorite groups), the song has such a simple, clear, and impactful message. The song is about the fact that most of us live our lives every day fighting battles with ourselves that are already over and won for us by God. I know that is something I have struggled with. Some days I am overrun with the guilt that I feel about my past sins. And this song, which, many times, seems to be played at just the right time, reminds me that God doesn't want anything from me but for me to give Him my heart. All I have to do is ask Him to forgive me, and it's done. He doesn't hold on to the memories of what I've done, so why should I? God doesn't need me to go out and do any good deeds or cure cancer or convince every person on Earth that I am wonderful (not that all those are bad things to do anyway), he just wants me to lay my life down for Him. The thought of that takes my breath away and brings tears to my eyes. God doesn't want anything from us, he just wants us to give ourselves to Him and live our lives each day for Him. It's just that simple. God is so good!

The lyrics that I love are:
"But all my deeds and my good name
Are just dirty rags that tear and strain
To cover all my guilty stains
That You already washed away"

You can listen to the song by clicking here or watching it below.
I hope you enjoy and I hope it makes an impact on you like it has to me!
Happy Friday!

Full Lyrics

I just looked up today
And realized how far away I am from where You are
You gave me life worth dying for
But between the altar and the door
I bought the lies that promised more
And here I go again

Lord, I know I let You down
But somehow, I will make You proud
I'll turn this sinking ship around
And make it back to You

But all my deeds and my good name
Are just dirty rags that tear and strain
To cover all my guilty stains
That You already washed away

('Cause) All You've ever wanted, all You've ever wanted
All You've ever wanted was my heart
Freedom's arms are open, my chains have all been broken
Relentless love has called me from the start
And all You wanted was my heart

I was chasing healing when I'd been made well
I was fighting battles when You conquered hell
Living free but from a prison cell
Lord, I lay it down today

So I'll stop living off of how I feel
And start standing on Your truth revealed
Jesus is my strength, my shield
And He will never fail me

No more chains, I've been set free
No more fighting battles You've won for me
Now in Christ, I stand complete

Laundry Room Changes - Paint and a Pedestal

For Christmas, Trent's dad had made me a pedestal for our washer and dryer to raise them about 12 inches. I was very excited to get them to our house and in place! No more getting down and crawling into the washer or dryer to retrieve any clothes that was stuck to the back or top... (First world problems, I know!)

Last weekend, Trent's parents came to visit and brought along the pedestal with their truck. We decided this would be a great time to paint the laundry room since it would probably be the last time the washer and dryer would be moved for a long time!

We decided to paint the room yellow and went with the color Whisper Yellow by Behr.

Painting and getting the pedestal in were just the first steps to making the laundry room into a better and prettier space! Before Pinterest and Houzz, I had no idea laundry rooms could be so pretty! My goal is to make the laundry room a little better looking, but also make it a space that works for us and stores all the stuff it's supposed to efficiently.

Here are some pictures of what the room looked like before. It was hard to take good pictures just because the room is so small, but I did what I could.

We took down all the shelving (and patched the gigantic holes they left in the wall) and took everything out of the room to paint. When it was done, it was like you needed sunglasses when you went in there. It was so much brighter and just seemed more clean!

Then when Trent's parents arrived, we got the washer and dryer out, put the pedestal down and then moved them back. And walah! I felt like a grown up with my taller washer and dryer! :)

Here's what the room looks like after the paint and getting the washer and dryer up on the platform.

I have plans for what I want to do with the room to improve the storage and to make it more pretty, but it will be a little while until we will make that all happen. I would love to have a counter over the washer and dryer and a few other "cool" things like that. Here's a few other things that I am thinking I want to incorporate into the room, though.

1. Elite Broom Cabinet 2. Stackable Mesh Drying Racks 
3. Stainless Steel Open-Top Trash Can 4. Small Rattan Bins
5. Oval Laundry Basket

I'm not sure how my mind will change by the time we actually get to making more improvements to the room, but it's a starting point. I also haven't decided what kind of shelves or cabinets, etc that I want directly over the washer and dryer, but I am sure we'll figure something out!

I'm happy with the small change we made so far, it's another thing checked off the list. I'm looking forward to making even more updates to the room!

Kock Christmas 2013

And finally, I have made it to my last Christmas update! So here's my last, picture overloaded post that has to do with our Christmas festivities. Now I can officially move into 2014!

On January 5, our family was finally able to all get together at Grandma Kock's to celebrate Christmas together. 

After church was over, we all made our way out to Grandma's for lunch and present opening. Now that I am writing this post, I realize that I was mistaken when I wrote about Christmas Day. I had said that we had lasagna and hot dogs on that day, but really we didn't. We had them on THIS day! How silly of me to mess up what we ate... my bad! Regardless of when it was, it was great!

Evidently our family is getting too big, or we are all growing up or something, but we didn't all fit around the table this year... So we had to have a kids table... Party of 1! Just Alex was there all by himself.

The kids table :)

Everyone but Grandpa and my mom (the picture taker)

Squeezing in a nap before it's time to open presents

After all the food was gone, it was time to open presents, so we all regrouped in the basement for the events to begin. This was another space that just didn't feel quite as big this year... I think we all must have gotten a tad bigger since last year or something!

Uncle Dan always has creative wrapping. This year, Jared got a present with Wes Stoelk's name on it... hmmm...

Grandma and Grandpa got a Keurig!

Wade got a picture of a shoe :)

My orange peeler and Trent's basting brush

Grandpa got this awesome custom carved wood box filled
with gifts and notes and other things from all of us.

I'd say we all hit the motherload again with all the gifts! And of course, it wouldn't be a family get together if we didn't take a bunch of pictures!

heehee

haha

Sleepy time for Uncle Dan again!

And we got some good pictures of the group as well!

Oh Jared and Alex... you certainly are related... Goofballs!

The Grandkids

The Grandkids and Significant Others

Our Family
I can hear Mattie -  "HEY! What about me, guys!?!"

Don't worry, though. She got in a picture!

Dan and the kids

And a few goofy pictures!

It was a great day, as I have always loved celebrating Christmas with my family, even when it happens 2 weeks after the actual day! Until next year... Merry Christmas, everyone!! :)