Seek the Kingdom of God

Jesus said in Luke 12:29 “And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. 30 For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. 31 But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you."
Okay, God says that He would give us everything we need, EVERYTHING, and we are not to worry!!!! So, all we have to do is to seek the Kingdom of God, how do we do that?

We recently took a class on the parables of Jesus, though with some background of Jewish history and traditions; the fact that I am married to a Jew, the class was eye-opening. Of course we know that Jesus is the GREATEST RABBI EVER LIVED, morever, He came as a Jew and lived as a Jew and taught as a Jew. All of Jesus' parables, without exception, were not original. They came from some previous rabbis, sages or the talmud (the Jewish oral law).

I want to share with you what I learned about "Seek the Kingdom of God".

Seeking the Kingdom of God is to go after God in everything we say and do, with "glorifying and pleasing God" in mind, knowing that He has full control over our lives. He is all powerful over everything, everyone and every circumstance. Seeking the Kingdom of God goes beyond seeking God, it is seeking His power, reign, rule, authority and dominion over our lives...that is we are to submit and surrender our everything to our ONE TRUE GOD, and acknowledge that we are NOTHING apart from Him, in complete humility.

As we submit to the King, we become more than conquerors and overcomers, and have been given all authority. So, what else do we have to worry about?

Experience His Love Songs for you

In our women's group, we have been studying the God's Amazing Love through the Song of songs written by Gaye Moss (it's so wonderful!! Everyone needs to do that study, it'll transform your view on God's love for you as your bridegroom!). How the Lord pursues us in such an intimate way!

Here, I have put a couple of love songs on the top of my playlist playing here.
Yes, God can speak through any songs, not just worship songs.
I invite you to close your eyes and experience the Lord as your loving bridegroom through these love songs to you...

He wants to take you (His princess - for the women that are reading) to a whole new world that you can't and don't even want to go back to where you used to be.
And, as you are dreaming that your love would be right here with you, He already is; you never dreamed that He'd notice you... well He does and He sees you beautiful no matter where you've been, what you've done, even where you are, what you look or feel like. He loves you, period!

I pray that you'll experience Him and His longing for you as I have through these songs.

Organizing...

Some people are born organizers, some are trained. I was neither. Oh, boy! I never realized how important that was until children came into our lives. If things are not in their places, life is a lot more stressful.

Over time, I will share with you tips that I have learned. I love clear plastic shoe boxes because they are easy to stack, label and they are transparent.

How about the big purses that we can stuff everything in? Do you find your husband and children stuffing their books, toys, and snacks in there too without your knowledge until it gets to be too heavy to carry or starts giving you shoulder-ache?
Periodically cleaning out your purse helps you see what you actually have in there. I like using medium-size zip-block bags to organize and sort my possessions, like one bag for snacks, and one bag for individual antibacterial wipes, vitamins, coupons. That way, I just put one bag out and can find things easier, rather than dumping the whole purse out in the most inconvenient time.

Anyway, hope this helps!

My Take on Skincare products

As you know by my previous blog on makeup, I use all natural, clean skincare products without preservatives. Some of the brands I recommend are Aubrey, MyChelle and Kiss the Face. I know that at Whole Foods and Sprouts, you can ask for samples and booklet information of MyChelle based on the skin type you have, they can give you their recommendation.

Myra Michelle Eby, who founded MyChelle, had worked for Aubrey previously. Aubrey products are mostly organic and great natural products, but they are not very effective in targeting problem areas, such as acne and aging issues. Therefore, Myra started her own company after doing her own research and mixing and matching natural ingredients.

MyChelle has a line of fabulous products. I experience some acne issues as an adult and somewhat oily/combination skin. Here is the list of what I am using in case you are interested: the White Cranberry cleasner, Clear Skin serum, Cranberry Mud Mask, Pumpkin Peel, Oil-free Grapefruit lotion, AND MOSTLY IMPORTANTLY the SPF 28 Sun Block for the face!! They all smell yummy, except for the unscented sun block, it does not smell like anything.

I'd suggest if you like anything, check out www.vitacost.com first before making purchases at Sprout. However, Sprout and Whole Foods have good return policy. Whole Foods' is 30 days with receipt and Sprout's is whenever with a receipt, granted that there is still good amount of product remaining. I had to do a fair amount of returning before I found what works for me.

Prices on Vitacost.com are much better than other retail stores, except for vitamins at the Vitamin Shoppe, but Vitamin Shoppe does not carry makeup and skincare. MyChelle tends to run high on prices, but the little amount of products goes a LONG way, and they use only quality ingredients. It's worthy it. The Cleanser especially last a while since you only use a pearl size of it each time, a small pearl size. Aubrey's are good too, if you don't have much skin problems to tackle. I started out my natural skincare adventure with Aubrey and it helped me tremendously to turn things around with my previous problematic skin, extremely sensitive skin and dry patches.

Watch for 20-25% off during line drive at Sprout, they discount for a whole month the brand that they are promoting. You should know by now I am a big fan of Sprout:)

Journey to the center of the earth

A few nights ago, we went to see "Journey to the center of the earth" at the "dollar movie theater". It exceeded my expectations if there was any. It's a fun movie, full of surprises.

Without giving away anything, there is a scene in which the characters were on a canoe in the ocean, the hand-made sail that helped sail the canoe was about to be blown off, the child reached over and wanted to grab and secure it tight. The other 2 characters screaming in warning, "Don't touch it!!" He didn't listen and grabbed it, then he was blown away with the sail by the storm.

What a profound lesson of disobedience that we came away with!! When we tell our children to be obedient is for their own safety and protection, just as the Lord has meant the law for us in the Torah (the first 5 books of the bible). When we tell our children to not touch the electrical outlet is so they wouldn't get hurt. When children are young, most of the consequences of their disobedience seem insignificant, like spilling a drink, or getting cuts and bruises. But if they are crossing the road, and a car is coming and we scream, "STOP!" and they don't listen, the consequence of their disobedience could be deadly.

When our children understand that the rules we ask them to follow are for their own good, and they comply not nessisarily having to know why, that can save them lots of trouble in life... AND the Lord said that blessings will come on us and overtake us simply because we obey. (Deuteronomy 28)

Wow, who wouldn't want to have blessings to come and overtake us and our children? Let's commit ourselves to teach the next generation the nugget of obedience and show them the joy of obedience which brings blessings from God!

Encourager - Messenger of Heaven's kisses

I was raised by a very loving mother. Though she was a single-working mother, she always made sure that we had everything we needed growing up, we felt that we lacked nothing.

In the Chinese culture, physical touch is not a big thing to express love within family. I got many kisses from mom when I was young, hugs are not an everyday thing, "I love you"'s are not said often, not even occasionally, you just know that you are loved... you just have to know and believe it without it being said.

I knew that my mother was very proud of me by what her friends told me. Whenever I did well in school, she'd give me smile and said, "Now, you can do better next time!" Even if I'd made a hundred! I could do "better"?!

Now that I am a mother, I try to make sure that my children know that I love them, they don't have to assume or guess. They know it by the "I love you"'s, our kisses and hugs, our words of encouragement that they receive daily. Our Father is a loving father, He sends us those loving kisses and hugs too. We have to learn to recognize them, ask for them, receive them as such.

REMEMBER... there's no coincidence...

Earlier this Spring, there was a time I was feeling like a bad mother. Frequent calls for discipline with our children was wearing me out and I regretted the times that I was impatient and ungracious. I didn't like how I had handled those situations.

And then... one day, I was in a restaurant having yummy lunch and great conversations with a good friend of mine and my sister-in-law. during the over-2-hour-period that we were there, my children were getting restless. I had to take them outside and talked to them a few times and asked them not to whine. Then, as an elderly couple were making their way out of the restaurant passing by our table, the lady stopped and proceded to speak to Matthew (I had Matthew in my lap at this time -and I thought to myself, "she must want to comment on how cute my Matthew is... which is not uncommon"). The lady looked Matthew straight into the eyes and said, "I have been watching you. I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of you. You are becoming such a good little boy. I am so proud of you, and your mother is doing a great job raising you.” I looked at her the whole time as she was speaking those words, and I was soaking in every word out of her mouth and knew immediately that she was a messager sent by my Father to bring me encouargement and showed me love. That was one of the kisses that my Father gave me that day.

I am so blessed by every little thing God does to show me His love. It's overwhelming at times! Father has taught me to be His messenger of His kisses for others as well, especially for my husband and my children. Paul and I are teaching our children to look for and recognize these hugs and kisses from our Lord.

Have you gotten any kisses from Father lately? Have you asked Him to show you where they are? Has He asked you to be His messenger to deliver His love today? God's love is life-changing!!! I pray that as you are reading this, Father is bringing to mind those loving hugs and kisses He sent you and those heartfelt embraces He encircles Himself around you that you know beyond a shadow of the doubt that YOU ARE LOVED!

Not all mineral makeup are equal!!

If you are like me, I love playing with makeup and play with samples whenever I have the chance. I was once in the cosmetics industry for several years and learned a few things about skincare and makeup.

A few years ago, my skin started doing some crazy stuff, like easily irritated by conventional beauty products. I heard that is common being that we women have ever-changing, uncontrollable hormones that control our bodies... especially before and after pregnancies, menstrual cycles, menopause, ...,etc.

Anyway, I was forced to look into natural products, like chemical-free, fragrance-free, preservative-free type of products. I started shopping for skincare and makeup at Sprout(my favorite place)and Whole Foods. I discovered some wonderful brands of products like Aubrey Organic, Kiss the Face, and now my favorite Mychelle (pronounced as "my-shell").

I was using some very popular brand of mineral powder makeup for over a year, then, one day someone educated me about mineral makeup that shone new light on it.

There are 3 things that we need to stay away from in mineral makeup: bismouth oxychloride, talc, and paraben. I have learned to not just take someone's word for it but to do my own research when I am told something.

Bismouth Oxychloride is a mineral and one of the most common ingredients found in mineral makeup. It's used as a filler but advertised as something that gives you that glow, which it does. However, it could irritate senstive skin and cause irritation when you sweat.

Talc is found in asbesto, which could cause lung cancer when inhaled. Morever, it can also clog pores and thus cause acne. I once called a cosmetic company and asked why they'd put talc in their mineral makeup to be their #1 ingredient. Their defense was that it was a cosmetic-grade talc and it doesn't really penetrate into skin, only lays on the top layer of skin. That's not true! Our skin absorbs about 60% of everything we put on, that means even toxins.

Paraben is a preservative with estrogenic properties, there are a variety of parabens like methyl-paraben and propyl-paraben. It is an inexpensive way to increase shelf life. Parabens can cause cancer due to their estrogenic activities. It is very commonly used in skincare, body care, cosmetics, and so on.

That's why reading labels are so important as sassy consumers. Just because you are in a "health-food store", don't assume that everything in there is good for you. Just because a brand calls itself "natural" and "healthful" doesn't mean that you can take their words for it.

Mychelle has an incredible stick foundation which I love. It's a big pricey but since a little goes a long way, it seems to last quite a while. Aubrey has a pressed silk powder make up, similar to the mineral, but it's pressed silk (doesn't it sound so delicate and fancy already), and it is fairly priced. I love their makeup and the blush as well.

Since we put lipstick on our lips, it goes directly into our digestive system. I feel that we especially have to be careful about that. Some lipstick carries lead, which is toxic for our bodies. Whole Foods has a makeup brand called Mineral Fusion. They have some good lipstick and lip gloss selection that would be safe to swallow.

Hope this has been helpful for you. I will give you more tips as I get new information. :)