Conversations with God

Wow!  I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like the time when college is about to wrap up, my mind never stops racing.  My mind has always loved to analyze every different part of every situation and can help but let itself wonder.. about everything.  But now, as I'm about to step out into life on my own as an adult, I'm constantly wondering about the future.  Where will I be?  How will I make certain decisions that are bound to present themselves etc.  Side-note: My great friend Tara always says a woman's mind is like an internet window.. It constantly has multiple windows open so you never forget to come back to the ones you won't close.. (I currently have 5 open :P ha!  Love you Tara!)

Anyway, I constantly have to remind myself, God will lead me where he wants me and where I am supposed to be.
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." -Deuteronomy 31:6

Lately, I've been reading the most INCREDIBLE book!  (Stay with me, it all ties back together, I promise!)  The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears by Mark Batterson.

This book is the first one in a long time that has really challenged me.  It has caused me to really stop and think and look at things a different way.  God has used it in an incredible way to transform me so I hope that you'll allow me to share a little bit of my heart today.

Each time I break out this book, I have my pink highlighter in hand (yes, I'm that nerd!)  I don't want to forget some of the amazing points in this book.  It also allows me to highlight key points that I love and that I can share with others when we have some great conversations about what God is doing in out lives right now.  The part that has stuck out to me the most so far is a part about our daily prayers.

Start Circling

What I'm about to share has the power to revolutionize the way you pray and the way you read the Bible.  We often view prayer and Scripture reading as two distinct spiritual disciplines without much overlap, but what if they were meant to be hyperlinked?  What if reading became a form of praying and praying became a form of reading?

One of the primary reasons we don't pray through is because we run out of things to say.  Our lack of persistence is really a lack of conversation pieces.  Like an awkward conversation, we don't know what to say.  Or like a conversation on its last leg, we run out of things to talk about.  That's when our prayers turn into a bunch of overused and misapplied clichés.  So instead of praying hard about a big dream, we're left with small talk.  Our prayers are meaningless as a conversation about the weather.  

The solution?  Pray through the Bible.

Prayer was never meant to be a monologue; it was meant to be a dialogue.  Think of Scripture as God's part of the script; prayer is our part.  Scripture is God's way of initiating a conversation; prayer is our response.  The paradigm shift happens when you realize that the Bible wasn't meant to be read through; the Bible was meant to be prayed through.  And if you pray through it, you'll never run out of things to talk about.

The Bible is a promise book and a prayer book.  And while reading is reactive, prayer is proactive.  Reading is the way you get through the Bible; prayer is the way you get the Bible through you.  As you pray, the Holy Spirit will quicken certain promises to your spirit.  It's very difficult to predict what and when and where and how, but over time, the promises of God will become your promises.  Then you need to circle those promises, both figuratively and literally.  I never read without a pen so that I can underline, asterisk, and circle.  I literally circle the promises in my Bible.  Then I do it figuratively by circling them in prayer.

One of my treasured possessions is my grandfather's Bible.  I sometimes do devotions in his Bible because I want to see the verses he underlined.  I love reading his notes in the margins.  And I love seeing what promises he circled.  The thing that I love most about his Bible is that it literally had to be taped together because it was falling apart.  It wasn't just well read.  It was well prayed.  (Mark Batterson: The Circle Maker  Pg. 96-97.)

The underlined portions are my own highlights in my book.

This was kind of mind-blowing to me!  Wow!  Makes perfect sense, right?  I know when I continually pray over something specific, I always run out of things to say and it's literally a broken record night after night.  So I've been trying to use this dialogue concept!  I now feel like I am truly having a conversation with God and not boring him!

So last night, (here's the tie-in from earlier!) I was wondering with "my plans" again.  (God's probably laughing at how silly I was being!! :)  Anyway, I asked him in prayer last night, "Lord, I know that you say, " 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.' So, am I just supposed to go about life and wait for your plans to come to fruition?  Or do I need to be proactive and make my own plans and just pray about them as I go?  Please clarify this for me so I may be obedient."

I didn't plan for his reply to come so soon, or in the form that it did.  So there it was as I was scrolling through none other than FACEBOOK this morning.  :) makes me giggle a little!  I came across a post from Passion City church saying that Pastor Louie Giglio wrote a blog post explaining why their church is taking a Sabbath Break.  I decided to read it.  (Nothing like the Lord's timing, can I get an Amen?!)  Anyway, I came to the second half of his post titled We Are Called Into God's "Already In Motion" Plans.  

The first sentence in this section:
"Sabbath rest is remembering that God calls us into His plans, He doesn't call us to create the plans and make them happen."

There was my answer, my clarification.  All it takes is asking and specifics.
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."  -Matthew 7:7

The post goes into more specifics and shares the story of Abraham and how he tried to make God's promise happen on his own by getting Hagar pregnant.  It's great, here's the link if you'd like to check out the whole post:  

http://www.passioncitychurch.com/blog/

There you have it.  Lets have an intimate relationship with Christ with real conversations and stop our one sided broken record pleas.  If you made it all the way to the end of the post, high five and thank you for letting me share a little of my heart and what God's been doing with me lately!

Blessings,
~Cassi

Monograms and Mimosas Bridal Shower

Last weekend was a very special one for my sweet friend Cati.  We started off first with a bridal shower that I threw in her honor.  The theme was monograms and mimosas.  Then on Sunday I was fortunate enough to attend her kick-off event for her bachelorette weekend, the "Talk Derby To Me" bachelorette lingerie shower.  Here's what I did for her Monograms and Mimosas shower!

Sticking with the theme, we obviously had a mimosa bar!  I also tried to monogram just about everything.  The future bride's last name will be Shadakofsky, so all of our monograms are an 'S'.  We were also fortunate enough to have her sweet gram allow us to have the party at her beautiful home.
 

Our color scheme was black and burlap and went with a little bit of country chic for the decorations to go along with the monograms and mimosas.

We had 9 guests, so we used two tables.  At the main table we had a burlap table runner and some awesome rhinestone ribbon that we ran down the center of the table runner.

Gram ordered this awesome fresh flower arrangement for our center piece and had burlap incorporated into it by having it wrapped around the vase.

This was the brides place setting.  I put a diamond ring napkin ring with her name card to set her place apart from everyone else's.  We had black chargers to accent the places and then gram let us use Cati's great grandmothers silver for our cutlery!

Here is our second table.  The 'S' was a 3D brown cardboard S.  I got two of them at Hobby Lobby for $2.00 each and painted them black.

The awesome place card holders are also from Hobby Lobby and my sweet Grandma Connie let me borrow them from her!

We only had a chair at one end of the table, so the other end we set up another cardboard 'S' and a black flower which is actually a lamp decoration.  It was a magnet in it as well as one that goes with it, so it worked perfectly and we were able to attached it to the table runner and keep everything in place.

Close up of the end of the main table.

This was our guest sign in table.  At one of Cati's first showers one of her hostesses started this awesome bucket list.  It is a few pieces a scrapbook paper decorated for the couple.  As the guests arrive, they add something for the couples bucket list.

This was my guest book for the shower.  I got this beautiful monogram 'S' at Hobby Lobby (can you tell I love that store?!).  We ended up having everyone sign the back as they came in with their name and well wish.  We used the back so that the couple will still be able to use it as a decoration in their home.

These cute Mr. and Mrs. signs came from Hobby Lobby for 1/2 off.  We hung them off the stocking hooks.

I made this wreath for a decoration for the shower, but also as the couple's gift for their new home.  (Let me know if you would like to put a custom order in!)

We used these two letters (the couple's first initials) and the flower as a decoration next to the mimosa bar.  

Mimosa Bar!

I decorated the brides flute with this cute ribbon.  I also cut out vinyl 'S's on my Silhouette Cameo and stuck them on each of the champagne flutes and the orange juice pitchers.  They were super easy and actually cut easier than scrapbook paper.  They also came off super easy when it was time to clean up.

Gold swirl straws from Hobby Lobby.

For brunch we had a pancake bar.

I got these cute little chalkboard signs at Ross.  6 for $2.00.  They had a little stand on the back and were super easy to write on.

 

The 'S' stickers were left over from apart of the favors (later in the post).  We put them on the milk pitcher and the mini milk jars.

These super cute mini milk jars are awesome!  They actually came from my Grandma Connie.  My great grandpa (her dad) was a milk man up in Montana way back in the day. Grandma let me borrow them and they're actually the real thing instead of a new replicated version.  So cool!  So first when everyone arrived, we had mimosas and then ate.

When everyone was done eating we played the toilet paper dress game.  Earlier in the day we had made little sheets of paper with the name of a character on them.  We had Elsa, Anna, and Olaf then Nemo, Dory, and Marlin, and then Nala, Simba, and Zazu.  We put one piece of paper inside of everyones name card.  When they were done eating we had them grab their paper and they had to find their matches.  These were the teams.  Then each team got a package of toilet paper and had 15 minutes to make the best dress!

Wrapped Cati pretty tight!  She could hardly walk to turn around for the judges (mom and gram).  

The back and the veil!

Liz getting prettied up for the other team.  She was our most recent bride, she just got married two months ago!! 

Bow-making Becky!  Seriously, she is amazing at them!

The two brides all ready for the judges.  Liz's team even threw in a bouquet!

Cati's veil ended up making her look like a ninja!  Such a fun game!  Go ninja bride!

The judges just couldn't reach a decision so the girls ended up playing rock paper scissors.  Cati's team won and got some super cute key chains!

Gift time!

We loved showering the beautiful bride!

During the gift portion, we had a girl ask the bride a different question about marriage between each of the gifts.  Some were what is she most excited about, nervous for, and what are they planning on doing as their first tradition etc.

After the gifts, we had a scavenger hunt!  The hunt was for some treasure.. the favors!

Mini brown bags with vinyl 'S's that I made on the cameo.

Inside each bag were some super fun gifts that went along with our theme.

Mini pink moscato champagne

Tissue with each girls first initial

Small jar of pearlized six lets

Mini bath and body works candle.  The scent was "sundress" which was also our attire!

The treasure hunt led to this spot under a chair up in gram's sitting room.  

Here's a link to the clues that I used for the game.

http://www.bridal-shower-ideas.info/bridal-shower-games/treasure-hunt-clues.htm

After the treasure hunt everyone talked for a bit and then headed out.

We had sweet cherries set up by the door with some cute little bags.

Of course we monogrammed them ;)

The beautiful bride-to-be and myself!

Cati, thank you so much for allowing me to be apart of your special day.  It was such an honor to be able to throw you such a fun shower.  You have truly blossomed into an incredible woman of God and I'm so honored to be your friend.  I can't wait to see your and Brandon's newest and biggest adventure yet!  Cheers sweet lady!