I was thinking to myself today that Easter is over now what, to which I was surprised to hear a voice inside say “No it is not.” That kind of surprised me. We as Christians though have to realize that Easter is not just a day, but a life style. Jesus died on the cross, was buried in a tomb and on the third day, he rose from the dead. He was resurrected! We need to live a life of resurrection. I know it is hard to be so alive everyday, but if Christ says it or did it, we can too. If we couldn’t he would never expect any thing from us at all-but he does, and we can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens us. So, Happy Resurrection to you! May this be a season you will never forget.
Apr
13
Oh my, so much has been going on since my last post. We have been in the heat of high school softball, while Ronnie is coaching the recreation league. So in saying all of that we have been very busy. Spring break was this past week and all we really did was spend time at one ball field or another. I am not complaining though because Veronica is in ninth grade and I know that there will not be many more years that we will be so busy coaching and playing ball, although I am looking forward to going to the ball park to see Jackson play.
Today is Easter. It was a great day. We went to church and my dad was there. It is always so good to have my dad around. Many do not know him, but he is awesome. I have always been somewhat of a daddy’s girl, so I really enjoy his company. The service was great and Pastor had an awesome message. I also enjoyed our kids choir-they were adorable!
After service, we went over to Aron and Chris’ house for dinner. We all brought food and had a great meal. I am so blessed to have such a precious family. From start to finish today was a pretty good day. I am very thankful!
Mar
25
Not sure if you guys remember or not, but when my older kids were teenagers about 15 years ago actually (man, I am old!), there was a name that they would call anyone that maybe acted different or looked different, and that name was “SCRUB.”
I found out that even Jesus was familiar and used this term in my daily Bible reading. I had to chuckle when I read this in the Living Bible translation in Luke 6:43-44
A tree from good stock doesn’t produce scrub fruit nor do trees from poor stock produce choice fruit. A tree is identified by the kind of fruit it produces.
I am not sure about you, but I do not want to produce ‘’scrub fruit,” cause you can ask anyone who is 2o something or older, this is not a good thing.
Mar
17
Today is Saint Patrick’s Day. Many do not get into Saint Patrick’s day to much, and many get into it a little too much, if you know what I mean, with all the partying and carrying on. This makes it hard to understand what Saint Patrick’s Day is and who Saint Patrick was.
Saint Patrick was born in Scotland and was kidnapped by Irish marauders and sold as a slave to a chieftan in Ireland. While in the chieftan’s service, Saint Patrick became a tender of his master’s flocks. He would be terribly lonely and afraid because he was only 16 years of age. He stated in his own words:
and His fear increased in me more and more, and the faith grew in me, and the spirit was roused, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly the same, so that whilst in the woods and on the mountain, even before the dawn, I was roused to prayer and felt no hurt from it, whether there was snow or ice or rain; nor was there any slothfulness in me, such as I see now, because the spirit was then fervent within me.
God allowed Saint Patrick to be in captivity for six years, and during this time Patrick learned the Celtic language fluently and began to tell of the redemption of Christ. He felt called to liberate the Irish race and therefore became an Apostle of Ireland. He used the Shamrock (not the 4 leaf clover) but the clover with three leafs to explain to the Irish the mystery of the Trinity. I wanted to close this post with the prayer of Saint Patrick, this prayer was composed to show victory over paganism. A very powerful prayer:
I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity:
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.I bind to myself today
The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism,
The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial,
The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
The virtue of His coming on the Judgement Day.I bind to myself today
The virtue of the love of seraphim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the hope of resurrection unto reward,
In prayers of Patriarchs,
In predictions of Prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faith of Confessors,
In purity of holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.I bind to myself today
The power of Heaven,
The light of the sun,
The brightness of the moon,
The splendour of fire,
The flashing of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of sea,
The stability of earth,
The compactness of rocks.I bind to myself today
God’s Power to guide me,
God’s Might to uphold me,
God’s Wisdom to teach me,
God’s Eye to watch over me,
God’s Ear to hear me,
God’s Word to give me speech,
God’s Hand to guide me,
God’s Way to lie before me,
God’s Shield to shelter me,
God’s Host to secure me,
Against the snares of demons,
Against the seductions of vices,
Against the lusts of nature,
Against everyone who meditates injury to me,
Whether far or near,
Whether few or with many.I invoke today all these virtues
Against every hostile merciless power
Which may assail my body and my soul,
Against the incantations of false prophets,
Against the black laws of heathenism,
Against the false laws of heresy,
Against the deceits of idolatry,
Against the spells of women, and smiths, and druids,
Against every knowledge that binds the soul of man.Christ, protect me today
Against every poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against death-wound,
That I may receive abundant reward.Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the fort,
Christ in the chariot seat,
Christ in the poop [deck],
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of an invocation of the Trinity,
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.P. S. It is also fabled that Saint Patrick drove out all of the snakes in Ireland, with a prayer like that-no wonder!
Mar
11
I exercise at Curves, and have the pleasure of being around a different group of ladies on a daily basis. Many who are Catholic or in a denomination that observes Lent, so I am privy to their conversations about this time of the year. I do not observe Lent, but I am always listening to what they have to say, and how they feel about different things concerning the Lord, it would probably surprise you the way they talk and feel about the Lord, I know it did me.
Many of the ladies see Lent as the time to do ‘’spring cleaning” of the heart and soul. Although I do not think there should be a certain time of the year that you reserve for this practice, I do like the concept of coming clean. I just think you should try to live your life in this “soul cleansing” mode all the time. I do agree though, that Easter and Passover (which ever you observe) is a time to dwell on the death of some things (Christ) and look toward the life or resurrection of other things. I think that is appropriate, even though I would not call it Lent- I would call it being conscious of Christ, and trying to live like him, it is funny because many of the women, no matter their denomination take this same stance. I love the Body of Christ and I love my friends at Curves.
Mar
10
Today is a special day because it is my grand baby Jackson’s first birthday. I cannot believe he is one, this year sure has passed by so quickly. Jackson is so incredibly handsome and so smart. He is walking very good now, and has already been weaned from his bottle. I cannot believe how quickly he catches on to things.
We celebrated his birthday last Sunday. Aron, my daughter, invited 65 people to Jackson’s birthday party, about 50 showed up. I have to say the party was a huge success. I was so proud of Aron because she does not like party planning and was totally out of her element, but you would never of known it. I gave her a tidbit of advice, and that was to make sure she kept the party going, and boy did she ever. I was so impressed by the way she just took charge and had that party started and ended in about two hours.
She did have Rhonda to thank for making Cookie Monster cupcakes with pieces of cookie sticking out of Cookie Monster’s mouth. Rhonda is so talented with cake decorating. We are so blessed to have her in our family, not just because of the awesome cakes she makes either. Rhonda is the party planner though-very natural at it, and actually loves it. I think she gets some of this from her real mom, Charlene-she is very talented at decorating and all of that. Me, not so much, I don’t have the party planning gift either, I just do the wing and prayer method.
Anyway, just wanted to give a shout out to Jackson today. Also, wanted to say how proud I am of my older girls too, they are true blessings. I also love their mom, Charlene, and I am glad to be a part of her family too-no matter how weird that may seem to be to some, it works for us.
Mar
06
Today we got our front and backyard cleaned, thanks to Bubba (we will save this for another post). It really does feel like Spring to me now. I love the first initial cleaning of the yard, especially the removal of all the leaves (20 bags in the back yard alone), there is nothing like it. I filled the birdfeeders with seed, and filled the hummingbird feeder with the nectar. We are officially ready for spring. I cannot wait!
Ecclesiastes 3:1
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
Mar
03
I wanted to keep on the winter focus for one more post because I started doing a Bible Study on the books Philippians and Colossians by Kay Arthur, and came across this scripture yesterday in Philippians. I thought it was very interesting and I wanted to share it. This is it out of The Message Translation: Philippians 1 :29
There’s far more to this life than trusting in Christ. There’s also suffering for him. And the suffering is as much a gift as the trusting.
I thought about that for a minute (actually the last two days), I know that a winter season is not like suffering really, but anytime that you are going through things that just do not seem like they should be- it is a form of struggle or hardship. I believe God allows the suffering though because without it, we never get to take the faith test and see how we are measuring up in this journey that we are all on. So get up, let’s pull our boot straps up, stop feeling sorry for ourselves, and let’s get trekking because the spirit is moving and Spring is almost here.
Feb
28
I wanted to take a minute and talk about Seasons in our life, especially in our lives personally and also with ministry. We, just like our calendar year experience different seasons. The only problem is, that we do not realize we are in a season until it is almost over. This can be a huge problem.
One example in my life is, our Lifegroup. We have hosted Lifegroup for about 9 years now, and we have seen and done about any and every thing that can be seen or done. However, we had our last Lifegroup multiply and it is so different at our house. No longer are we seeing the big crowds with the tremendous energy, but now we are down to a few families. The hardest part was though, that the new lifegroup that just birthed is thriving and has already birthed again. Now I always want to congratulate success, but I have to admit I questioned to myself what was wrong. After much soul searching the Lord just sweetly told me that it was just a different season and that he was doing a different thing. I did not really want to hear this, but after much prayer and self examination, I realized that the Lord was doing something new. What he revealed to me that he was doing was, that he was solidifying our group and causing our roots to go down very deep right now, so we could hold what was coming in the future. I realized at that moment our group must be going through a winter season because this is what happens to trees. Usually all the leaves fall off, and all that is left is ugly bark, but if that doesn’t happen when spring comes, that tree will never be able to hold the fruit. I want to bear much fruit! I want everything that I am a part of to bear much fruit! I want to bear fruit that remains. I do not want to bear fruit that is small, withered and rotten. I want to bear fruit that is huge and lush and that taste incredible! We will not be able to bear this kind of fruit without winter though. So if you find yourself or a ministry that you are a part of not thriving right now, take this time to seek God with all of your heart because if we do, we will be able to hold the weight of what is coming!
Feb
26
We talked last night in Lifegroup about Pastor’s message “An Awesome Place.” We then talked about how do we practice the presence of God. We try to make God so mystical or so far away sometimes. God wants to be so close to us and we try to be so spiritual or religious that we sometimes miss him all together. If you think about it, that is what the Pharisees or religious folks did when Jesus was on this earth. Entering God’s presence is so easy though it says very clearly in God’s word how to enter. The Bible tells in Psalms 100:4 (Amplified)
4Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and a thank offering and into His courts with praise! Be thankful and say so to Him, bless and affectionately praise His name!
I know that we all have reasons to be thankful, but have you ever just stopped to really tell the Lord how thankful you are for him and all of his blessings on your life? If you do this, it won’t be long until you will be overwhelmed by his goodness to you. Not to mention praising him for all of his glorious attributes and accomplishments in your life. Before you know it the doors the heaven will be wide open and you will be face to face with God. How easy is that?
