Lets Give Them Something to Talk About

I heard a story like this when i was younger, it made me think...  so here is my rendition of it ... Lets say there was this man.   Everyone liked this man.   He owned the railroad company and helped build the railroad and still worked for the railroad.   He had wanted someone to pass his legacy along to for years, finally as he was getting older, He and His wife were blessed with a son.   This man loved his son, he did everything with his son.   His son grew up playing at his daddy’s work.   Flattening pennies on the tracks.   “One day the man asked his son if he wanted to go to the crossing bridge with him and help him switch over the tracks.   This was the boy’s favorite thing to do.   The crossing bridge was over a large body of water and only one track wide.   The only way that the trains coming from either side could get over it is if the worker would change the track.   They expected the tracks to be changed and the system had gotten so good, that they slowed instead o

Last night my life group (a group of families from church that meet once a week to share our lives) prayed for my back.   For those of you that don’t know, my back has been giving me so many problems.   It has given me pain, consistent migraines and made me unable to move for days on end.   I have prayed for healing before for others, sometimes it has worked, but more often it has not.   I don’t know though, having someone lay hands on me and pray was a really unique experience for me.   My friend put his hand on my right shoulder, unknown to him, that is the side that is giving me most of my issues.   And he prayed.   He prayed for healing in the name of Jesus.   It was so crazy that as he was praying, I could feel my back start to realign.   Now don’t get me wrong, I have no idea if I am “healed”.   As soon as he was finished praying for me, I sat up and my upper back (again the place giving me so many issues) popped about 10 times.   The muscles surrounding it are still really sore

So a lot of prayer and time has been spent considering a big decision coming up in my life.   We are excited about the prospect and it is something that has been on my heart for YEARS, it just seems like now is the time to put the plan into action.   I am not quite ready to say 100% that I am going to do it, but I am really excited how God opens up doors and can make things happen.   A lot is just clicking and falling into place and family as well as friends and influential people are being beyond supportive, encouraging me and making my pipe dream potentially become a reality.   With all that said, I want to talk about waiting.   God’s timing is really the best timing.   I have really wanted things in the past and felt a strong desire for them, but things didn’t click, they didn’t fall into place.   I wasn’t letting God have control of the thing that I wanted to accomplish and therefore, it ultimately failed.   There have been times that God has made something amazing happen and

Back to the pool I go.   This will probably be my last although there is so much more I have learned from it, I guess I do not want to beat a dead horse.   What do you think of when you think of a pool?   Most people think of a refreshing, relaxing experience.   Maybe you think of the chlorine smell and the cool water over your body or maybe floating on a float and relaxing in the sun.   Usually though it is some sort of refreshment.   Even swimmers that compete feel refreshed after getting out of a pool to do their workout.   What did I think of when seeing my pool?   I thought, I am going to have to scrub down after going in there.   The whole time I am in there, I am going to have to be cleaning out bugs.   Granted, this is a little pool and the filter isn’t working very well, but those are my thoughts when I think of our little 10 foot round pool.   For a while, I was struggling with my devotions.   I didn’t want to do them because I knew that my life was needing maintenance and

This summer I was privileged enough to get to go spend 10 days with my fantastic family in another state.   That story is a crazy one in itself where my dog had puppies and I was bringing home 4 extra kids and my husband was out of the country and not with us…   but that story is for another time possibly.   The beauty of getting to spend time away from reality and real life is awesome.   The amount of time that I chose to do it though was too long.   I had left my schedule, and more importantly, my kids’ schedule for 10 days and then had visitors for another week, it took us a month to finally get back to normalcy, again though, another time.   We left our life here for 10 days.   Ten days our pool sat unattended.   It was hot.   I don’t know if you are aware of the record-breaking summer that we have had.   There has been ridiculous heat, no rain and straight sunlight for the majority of the summer.   It has been HOT – perfect pool weather, right?   Well leaving a pool stagnant for

I may need to write a book, well another one.   This one would be informational and entitled something like Everything I need to know about being a Christian, I learned from taking care of a Pool.   This summer has been crazy.   Our pool from last year didn’t make it, so we purchased a second one.   It was over 100 degrees a lot of the time and a pool was just a must.   We bought another one of those small inflatable top pools that is about 10 foot around and has a little filter. We splurged the whole $95 on it… I know, we are big spenders!   Unfortunately, we were hardly in it due to maintenance issues, my husband ended up being the only one to use it a lot and that was with the kiddos at night, after work usually.   Oh the wealth of information you can get from the littlest things in life.   I am going to start with the first thing that I learned and work down my list.   In a way, like a mini series or mini book…   Here we go, lesson #1, Get a new cover that actually fits your pool

I went off blogging for a while as I settled into a new church, a new role and a new period of my life, but I realized how much I miss writing, how doing this keeps me accountable to doing my Bible reading and how I connect with people by my blog.   So I am back after a short hiatus, and if you are reading this, I want to thank you for your support.   Someone asked me the other day, “how are you so lucky?”   I just smiled, I am lucky- but the thing that makes me lucky isn’t the fact that I have the most amazing husband of 9 years, 2 girls, stay at home, have great parents, fun sisters, good in-laws, a great church, good fiends.   That is only what they see on the outside.   I am “lucky” as they put it because Jesus loved me enough to die on the cross for my sins and I know it.   So my attitude daily isn’t about what I don’t have, it is about what I have in life. I could sit here and have a bad attitude about how I don’t have a basement, cable, new cars, how the storm the other night

I have always harbored a secret resentment toward the parable of the Prodigal Son.   I have always been the goodie-goodie and it never seemed fair that the one son got to go out and have all the “fun” and then come back and get a party.   I totally got where the older brother was coming from!   I would get so frustrated reading this story because I would think, they chose to go away from God, chose to go out partying and now they want to come back?   What about the one that had been true?   What about the good ones that have been here the whole time?   Why don’t we get a party?   Why don’t we get the robe and the fattened calf?   Now don’t get me wrong, I am always happy when someone comes back into the will of God, and overjoyed when a lost soul gets saved, but for some reason, I would get so mad because I was being selfish.   Well, I was thinking all this until last night when God put on my heart something heavy.   As I blogged about yesterday, we have a little 4-year old friend who

Right now I have a friend whose son is in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in St. Louis.   Her son is 4 years old.   He had a bad reaction to medication and is suffering from Stephen Johnson’s Syndrome.   This is a rare disease but is life threatening.   The little man (we will call him H) is having a very rough time of it.   He is sedated and heavily medicated but nothing seems to be doing what it is supposed to be doing.   The past two days have been extremely rough for him.   His heart rate has been high and he has had to start a blood transfusion.   They have been keeping us all updated via facebook and soliciting prayers.   Today, I am going to solicit prayers through here.   The reason that I do is because Jesus is the great physician and can heal all wounds.   In Luke 18:27 it says: “Jesus replied, ‘What is impossible with men is possible with God.’” Please pray for healing.   Pray for a miracle Pray for blessings on this family going through this Pray fro strength Pray for k

Acts 5: 1-11 1 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet. 3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”   5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.   7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?” “Yes,” she sai

One of the major bummers about technology is if you don’t “save” something that you just worked on it is gone forever.   This Sunday we had an awesome message at church.   Pastor Evan was cracking us up as well as giving us practical lessons from the Bible about how to use and spend our money wisely.   A lot of times when that topic comes up, I just start to tune it out because I married the world’s best money handler EVER so I never have to worry about budgeting or too much month at the end of my money, but this week, I listened and it was really good.   Alas though, my kindle, and the app I was note taking on didn’t save my note properly and now it isn’t there anymore for me to access and look back on.   It was because I didn’t hit the save button on the application.   (I swear I did, but you know). How many times do we let something go in one ear and out the other?   How often do we forget to hit the “save button” when we find something really great in life or have a great time?  

I was very blessed to go over to some new friend’s home last night and talk with them and others about life in general.   As the topic turned solely to missions late in the evening (as this couple used to travel around bringing the good news to kids around the world, and then lived in a different country for 3 years sharing the gospel) I said something like, it must feel amazing to be right in the center of God’s Will.   To have to rely on Him for protection from the most random events; to have to rely on God to take you out of situations that are dangerous; to rely on Him for every provision that you are given; and most importantly, to be brining the message of Christ to all nations under heaven.   Can you imagine?   Knowing that you are supposed to be right where you are, doing what you are doing, right when you are doing it because you have to, and have chosen to, rely on God for every little aspect of your life.   Well friends, I am not out spreading the message over seas, but tha

I think that I have ruined myself for movies lately.   I watched a movie last night, in the theaters even- it was even a chick flick, and I was surprised at how little I ended up liking it.   I watched a movie the other day on Netflix (yes I am finally doing my free trial) that I had been dying to see because it looked so funny, but I couldn’t get into it.   I was actually disgusted by it.   I have ruined myself for movies and I think that I am okay with that.   Movies today have so much moral delinquency.   Sex isn’t a big deal, living together isn’t a big deal, being naked isn’t a big deal, cussing is a big deal, divorce isn't a big deal, hurting someone isn’t a big deal….   The list goes on and on and on.   I remember when I was younger people living together before marriage was looked at as a scandal.   Your parents cared about what you did and wouldn’t allow it.   You respected your parents enough to not do it.   More importantly, you respected your self and your God enoug

I have always been looking for something that I am really good at, something that I can shine at.  Unfortunately, this morning in bed, I realized what it is.  I am really great, amazing actually, at procrastinating.  I am the queen of procrastination.  I hit the snooze button at least 2 times when in bed.  I put off calling doctors or dentists until the problem is really bad.  I put off taking stuff out of the car until tomorrow, or put off the laundry.  I have put off mopping my floor so it hasn’t been done in over 2 weeks (yuck!  I will do it today, I hope…).  I am really good at putting things off.  So I am really great at something that I can’t be proud of.  I was laying in bed and God threw it at me.  He said – lady, get your butt out of bed!  Get started, today is a beautiful day that I have made, rejoice and be glad in it.  Don’t waste your time in bed or doing things that aren’t glorifying to me…  in everything, do it as if unto Me today.  Well, when God tells you something li