Lets Give Them Something to Talk About

I walk past the coffee maker and look at it longingly.   Missing that bitter and surprisingly sweet brew to be slipping down my throat at that minute having taken its journey past all my taste buds.   Sighing, I feel the pain in my chest caused by heartburn that I have been suffering from the past few days; I walk past almost able to smell the coffee in the air.   Trying my hardest to wrestle two kids into clothes and into the car, I forget to dress myself and drive to school, late, in my jammie top covered in a thick coat so no one will notice.   Getting home, I walk past the coffee maker again, the urge to brew a pot is so strong.   I plant myself at my computer to write this and all I can think of is coffee.   Coffee and heartburn.   The past 3 days I have had severe heartburn going on.   I don’t know why it is happening, but it is.   Waking up and being kept awake from 11pm- 5am with shooting pains stabbing your chest does not help the no-coffee factor while trying to stay

We are doing little things around our house to spruce it up a bit.   A little thing here, a little thing there.   Changing door knobs, light fixtures, drawer pulls etc…   It is fun to see how much a little thing can change the appearance and the feel of something so rapidly.   Today, I finished my desk.   I took cereal boxes and cut and covered them into pretty organizer trays.   Sitting here, I feel less stressed out, I feel more organized and all around happier.   I feel like things aren’t quite as cluttered.   It is a nice feeling that I don’t usually get in my house.   Now when I turn around, I feel the exact opposite since my kitchen is in a state of disaster right now, but that is a different story.   The transition in my house is happening in baby steps.   God has really been speaking to me the past few days.   Focus on the Family talked about how it is the little things that add up to a big thing.   Our Pastor’s beautiful Wife told me that sometimes God takes us in baby

Yesterday we were getting ready for church.   My 4-year-old loves to sing, and really, she does pretty well staying on pitch and hitting the notes.   However, she doesn’t always get the words right.   She is still in the Christmas spirit and was singing “We Three Kings”, my husband and I had to laugh when from the bathroom as she is washing her hands, her sweet little singing voice   belts out…“We Three Kings of glory and tar …”   It took us few seconds to regain out composure and we asked her what she said.   She told us, glory and tar were the right words.   We tried to explain that it is actually “orient are”, but she wouldn’t hear it.   My other daughter loves to sing also, her favorite song has to be Twinkle, Twinkle.   Her little 3-year-old voice is super cute when it sings, and she can sometimes stay on pitch and sometimes carry a tune, but the words are pretty much always wrong.   “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are, Up above down below, twinkle, t

I am part of a life group.   It is pretty cool.   We meet once a week and talk about our life, we talk about the message that we heard at church on Sunday and we pray for each other and share funny stories about our lives in general.   We usually meet on Thursday nights and each bring some sort of food to share.   This week it was Asian night.   It was so good, people brought all sorts of yummies to share.   I was happy.   My husband always makes the joke about Chinese food being the stray cats and dogs, so as I was in charge of dessert this time, I made something unique.   I made a special cake, Kitty Litter Cake.   Yep, it is a cake that actually looks just like kitty litter.   I put it in a red tub that looked like a litter tray and served it with a slotted spoon.   I made homemade tootsie rolls in the shape of poo on top.   It was pretty convincing.   The “poop” was brown and sticky and mounded on top of what looked like sandy kitty litter.   It looked disgusting, but it ta

Have you ever felt a “calling” a calling to do something special, to do something amazing in life.   David was called a a young age to be king, Solomon was called to be wise, Noah was called to save the human race, Moses was called to take the Israelites out of Egypt, and the list goes on.   Well as I get older I find all sorts of things that I have not missed my calling in.   I have not missed my calling in; math, science, gardening, teaching young children on a consistent basis, doctor, nurse, and as I discovered yesterday- painting!   However, there are some people who are extremely talented in these areas.   Although I am not called into these fields, I wouldn’t have known had I not tried.   I wouldn’t have known that I completely stink at math had I not been able to compute simple things in my head at a young age.   I wouldn’t have known that gardening isn’t my strong point if I didn’t get out and try it out.   I wouldn’t have known that I couldn’t hack it as a nurse- oh wait

Today, I read the story of Jonah.   It was great to get into the word and read a familiar story, but I just didn’t feel like God was giving me anything in particular that I learned today.   I know, it is selfish of me to want God to teach me something new EVERY day, but I think if we look hard enough, God is everywhere.   So I read the story of Jonah and paused to reflect on it.   Really, my pausing was taping my kitchen to paint it and starting on the trim.   So I was still marinating on what God wanted to teach me as I went to get my kids.   Then I got home and started painting.   For about a year, I have wanted to paint one wall in my kitchen red.   I love red.   It is such a fantastic color.   It is bold, and vibrant and just makes me happy.   So I began, painting trim, rolling, trim, rolling, trim, rolling…   and the cycle continued.   It seemed like it was nearly impossible to get everything covered perfectly.   Red is a hard color to work with.   So I am up on a step sto

So today I was super excited because I was re-organizing my kitchen.   I have been given the green light to begin to renovate my house into exactly what I want it to be.   It has been so fun picking out new drawer pulls, flooring etc…   The problem is, as soon as I get the item to re-do, that is all I can think about.   I dream about the renovations.   So today, I woke up, took my kid to school (where we forgot her backpack), came home and started in on the pantry.   I pulled everything out, fixed what was supposed to be fixed, put everything in, cleaned the floor, re-organized it all.   I was feeling pretty stinking accomplished around 1:00.   I knew that I hadn’t done my devotions for the morning.   I hadn’t had my time in the word.   I knew it, and I knew that I felt a little guilty about it, but I was just going to catch up tomorrow.   (I usually write my next day blog/ devotions during the day.)   A few weeks ago, when I decided to start blogging again, I asked a dear frie

Obadiah, what a fun name to say!   It actually means the servant of Yahweh.   This is a very short book of the Bible.   It is actually only one chapter.   Edomites are the descendants of Esau, Jacob’s brother.   They live in a “rock fortress” and have made their home “high in the mountains” (v3).   The Israelites inhabit Jerusalem at this time and, as usual, someone is attacking them.   Instead of coming to the aid of their relatives, the Edomites laugh and scoff at the Israelites and gloat in the fact that Israel is being taken over.   The book is a prophesy about how Edom is going to be destroyed for their actions against Israel.   Some could read this book of the Bible and say, okay, I am done, but if you have read any of my other blogs, you know that isn’t how I roll.   When I was reading this book, I realized, how often do we act like those that can’t be touched?   We stand by while other Christians, our brothers and sisters in Christ, are attacked because we don’t want to

I have made it my goal to start reading through the Minor Prophets in the Old Testament.   Books that I don’t think that I have ever read before.   I have said their names before and heard specific verses from them, but I have never sat down and read through them with the history going on in that time in my head.   Today, my lovely dogs barking asking to go outside woke me up before dawn.   Finally, after yelling at them, shushing them and lying in bed for 2 more hours, I got out of my soft, warm bed at 6:00.   I said goodbye to my husband who was going to play some basketball, made my pot of coffee, candied my personal cup and sat down ready to read the book of Amos (I am reading from the New Living Translation in all these).   Amos was a shepherd and a fig farmer.   He was not an educated priest, a servant, a born prophet…   He was just an ordinary guy doing what God told him to do.   He was sending a message.   The message was about destruction, about things that were go

Recently I was blessed with the opportunity to re-hash Genesis with a group of friends.   We each took a few chapters and summarized those chapters and went through the group.   We covered it all in about 45 minutes.   It was a lot of information to take in, but also fun to hear our friends breathlessly try to fit in everything that they could about the stories that we already knew, into the short few minutes they were given to do this in.   The book of Genesis has an awful lot of drama.   Hearing pieces of it, I thought a soap opera writer couldn’t have done better themselves.   God makes man perfect, but gives us free will – Man sins- Man is thrown out of the Garden of Eden- Man has two sons- One son kills the other son, the world goes down hill.   God sends a flood to kill everything and start over.   He then calls a man who is really really old to follow him.   Abraham has a wife Sarah- Sarah can’t have babies so tells him to take Hagar, her maid servant, and have a bab

Matthew 28:16-20 New International Version (NIV) The Great Commission “16  Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17  When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18  Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” For those of you that know me personally, you know that I am a football fan.   NFL and I are tight.   More specifically, I am a Steelers (Pittsburgh, PA) fan.   Now If you know anything about Football, you know that the Steelers have 2 major rivals; the Ravens and the Patriots.   Growing up in The Burgh, it is difficult to even say these teams names, or type them in this case, with out getting

Recently, I have been looking at the Bible in a totally different way.   While doing our family devotions the other night, we read the story of Samson.   At the end of the story, the author paralleled it to Jesus and to His story.   The story of Hosea also is a story about how God loves Israel so much.   This week, I was asked to read a section of the Bible for our Life Group.   It is a story that I am so familiar with, I can literally say, or rather sing, it in my sleep.   It is the story of Joseph.   Throughout high school, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolored Dream Coat was by far my favorite musical, performing in it 5 shows and watching it over 30 if you include all the shows that I attended.   Needless to say, I am very familiar with this story.   At first, when I was assigned this section, I was thinking to myself, this will be easy, I can just re-tell the story and be done.   This morning, I realized that God had something else in store for me completely.   I encou