IN CHRIST

FROM EPHESIANS (NKJ, NCV, NLT):
IN CHRIST:

*I am holy and without blame before Him.
*I am holy and without fault in His eyes.
*I have redemption and forgiveness of sins.
*I am set free!
*I have freedom.
*I have an inheritance from God.
*I was chosen to be God's people.
*I have God's special mark.
*I am sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.
*I am God's own.
*I am alive!
*I am a new person.
*I am raised up and sitting in the heavenly places.
*I am saved.
*I am near to God.
*I have peace!
*I am a member of God's family.
*I am a member of the household of God.
*I am a dwelling place for God in the spirit.
*I am a partaker of His promise.
*I can come before God with freedom and without fear.
*I can come fearlessly into God's presence.
*I have a spiritual renewal of my thoughts and attitudes.
*I am renewed in the spirit of my mind.
*I am a new person, created in God's likeness- righteous, holy, and pure
*I am light.
*I have light.
*I am pure and without fault.
*I am holy and clean, without spot or wrinkle or any blemish.
*I am holy and without fault.
*I am a member of His body.

And you are too! Farrell Fisher encouraged me to do this study to combat the lies of the enemy about myself that I have been listening to. It is very enlightening and exciting. Now I just have to start believing the truths I have in Christ. Why is it so much easier to believe the lies?

Hillbilly Patrons

These people are incredible. Incredibly lacking class that is...
This story is so long, but it will give you some insight into my daily life and hopefully you'll get a good laugh too.

First of all, they arrived ten minutes late to their 8:30 p.m. reservation and complain when they have to wait for the hostess to return from seeting another table.

When I first walk up to the table to great the family of five the mother and father are both on their cell phones and the teenage daughter is texting on hers. Generally I will walk away at this point and figure they can wait, but for some reason I was overly annoyed and decided to stay. They eventually got a couple of drink orders in and I left, with the mom still on her phone and the daughter still texting.

When I return the mom did not even give me time to tell the specials before she said, "We're ready to order, the kids are tired." OK, so I'm wondering why they're out to dinner at a quarter to nine. I decide to save my breath, they can go without specials. The mom orders for herself and the three daughters. The same dish for everyone a dish that she has somewhat created on her own. No big deal, she just changed the pastas around, but this required some discussion between us because we were not understanding each other. We got through it and I went on to the dad who asked how the trout is and I said that it is good. Then he asked about the "creamy house potatoes" which I explained are really just scalloped pots. He asked if they are frozen and I said no. Then he asked, "Are they gooder than the garlic mashed potatoes?" No joke the man said gooder and he was not kidding!

I took a break from writing this story and now I don't want to finish it is so long and I really am over it, so I am going to finish with the highlights because I don't want to waste this whole post.

*I brought the wine to the table and the dad wanted to open it himself. This does not really jive with our way of doing things.
*The dad asked for oil and vinegar to go with the bread. I brought it out and he asked if it was extra virgin and I replied that it was. He proceeded to taste it and tell me that it didn't taste like it. Oh, please!
*When I brought the food out the middle daughter complained that she did not want it and told her mom she didn't even ask her. At which point the mom ordered a plain kids' pasta and told me that usually when the customer orders something for a kid the kitchen should not garnish it with green stuff. Remember, she ordered an adult dish!
*After I put the food down I was cleaning up some of the mess from the bread and oil/vinegar. The table was a complete disaster. As I am cleaning it up and removing some of the dirty bread plates the dad bursts in that they are going to need bread with dinner. By this time I am really irritated, so I said I would bring him some more, but I wanted to clean up because "this is just a mess". He then lifts the olive oil up to me and asks if he can get a different one because "this really doesn't taste extra virgin". I told him that was all we had. By the way, it was extra virgin.
*So, I order one kids' pasta and then they send the youngest daughter to the wait station to order another. And then separately order sides of red sauce. While they wait for these things to be cooked they continue to send the little girl to the wait station to check the status of their order! A little patience, please. After I drop the new pastas I boxed up the other ones that they were not eating.
*I am totally annoyed and do not want to wait on them any more, but things seem to be going a bit smoother.
*The dinner is over and they ask for the check. This is where things start to get ugly again...I charged them for everything. I figured they ordered it, there was nothing wrong with it and they were taking the pasta their kids didn't want. (I was probably just angry, because if I had really liked them I think I would have asked to take something off.) I drop the check and look over to see the mom inspecting it and writing on it. Then the little girl appears at the wait station door again with check in hand. She hands it back and I see that her mom has crossed out the kids pastas. Can you imagine sending your little girl to battle over a check. Of course I didn't discuss it with her. I took it to my manager and we took it down to Ed, the owner, and he said to go ahead and take it off, but to take the to go box! So we edited the check and I head back to the table. I gave it to the dad who was still sitting down. The mom was standing by the table holding a kid. He looked at the check and said, "Now, that's gooder." I am not kidding, he said it again! So when I started to take the to go box away it all went bad. He said I should take those off the check then and I said I don't think so. Then the mom cuts in about how terrible it was, even though she ate all of hers. I told her it was because she had changed the dish. She said they went to Gramma's (she meant Grappa's) the night before and had the same thing and the kids ate all of it. So I asked if they garnished it and she looked confused so I reminded her of how she had complained about the garnish and she went off about how I should never tell a customer that they had complained. She then asked me how long I had been a waitress! Finally I kept my mouth shut and walked off. So after they left I got the check off of the table and the dad had crossed out two of the penne pastas and did the math in the margin to figure out how much to subtract. He then subtracted them, added two "sides of spaghetti", totaled it and added a $20.00 tip! I was surprised that he left me a tip after all of that, but the really crazy thing is that he made up his own check! I think that is against the law, except that with the tip he left enough to pay the bill in full.

I should have finished this when I started it because it is no longer funny to me.