Down and out....

Hey everyone. Thanks for noticing I've been gone. teehee Last week we had one of those random afternoon storms and when I shut down my computer - protecting it, or so I thought - it got blasted! I can't get it to power up no matter what I try. I'm at my sweet girlfriend Stephani's today and she's letting me check my email and do this post.

I'm not sure how long I'll be out of commission but I'll post every chance I get. Love to all and I'll hopefully talk to ya soon!
Heb 12:1-2 (Thanks for being a cloud of witnesses to me!)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MAN!!!

Today is my man's birthday! Jimmy, I just can't tell you how thankful I am that God, in His infinite wisdom and divine plan, brought us together. You are the love of my life, my best friend, my soulmate, my lover, my everything! We have faced things that would've destroyed most marriages BUT GOD knew we could handle it together as long as we kept Him as our focus! I'm so proud to be your wife! I'm so proud of your faithful service to our Lord! I love you and I thank God that on this day He breathed His Breath of Life into your lungs! I love you! I am Forever Yours!

(Ain't he a hotty?! You should see him play the drums! OUCH!! ;-))

LEGACY

The Lord has given our pastor a vision for our church and he's calling it "Legacy". (visit www.legacy.hgbc.org to find out more) Basically it's calling our church body - as a body - together to pray and fast for 40 days. Praying specifically for God's vision for us personally, for our family, for our church and our nation. I won't tell you everything about it so that you can check it our for yourself but there are some things I want to share about it.

It's already started to affect our worship at our church as well. The last 2 weeks have been AMAZING! The music has sounded better, the prayer time has been sweeter and the clock hasn't been the focus - well, not entirely - baby steps people!! teehee People are becoming more free in our worship and I just can't wait to see how much more the Lord has in store for us as a body!

Sunday night's at church have always been special to me. It makes my big old church feel like a smaller hometown kinda church. LOVE THAT! Dr. Rummage preaches Sun. nights and he's been doing the 10 commandments and child - let me tell you - he's bringin' it EVERY week! That man just steps completely out of the way and let's the Lord do the talkin'!! AWESOME! If you're a "Grover" and not coming on Sun. nights - you need to get there!! It's worth it! Last night after the invitation - we took a few minutes with the music just playing to just end the worship day in prayer. Just silent prayer around the church! FIRST TIME EVER DOING THAT AND IT WAS INCREDIBLE! I could feel the Lord's Presence so strong and I could feel Him suiting us up with His Armor for the battle of the week! AWESOME! He's so good ya'll! I pray that ya'll are in the Word. That ya'll are on your face before the Lord and then givin' up some SERIOUS praise! Don't be scared! Turn on the music and dance before Him! He won't mind a bit!! teehee

PRAISE DAY!!

Is Friday reason enough to praise? SURE! Is one more week of summer break reason enough to praise? ABSOLUTELY! BUT GOD! Well that right there is all the reason to praise!!!

Ya'll if I had 1,000 tongues it still wouldn't be enough to praise my Lord! He has been so faithful to me, to my family! Last night my man and I watched "The Pursuit of Happyness" and it was so good! I had seen it with my sister but watched it again with him. We both were in tears. Not because of the great acting of Will Smith but because we were SOOOO close to being in the EXACT same spot he was. Homeless, no job and kids to take care of! We were moved to tears because "BUT GOD" we would've been standin in line at the homeless shelter too. Ya'll God is so good to His children! He provided us with a home and with a job! I really mean that GOD did that!

Then even this week He shows off again!!! I told ya'll about our school clothes money going into the van, well this week GOD sent me an Old Navy gift card thru some sweet sister in Christ! I assume it was a sweet sister because I don't know many men who write with "loops"! teehee Yes just this week I received an anonymous Gift Card to help with my kids school clothes! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?! God just cracks me up ya'll! I love Him so much and love this family of believers He's given me here on earth until I can knell before Him, kiss His holy feet then crawl up in His lap and love on Him for all eternity!!! Ya'll I just can't hardly wait!!

I pray that all of you know Him and know His love, His provision, His compassion on you! If you don't please believe that it's real! It's not coincidence, it's not chance or luck and it's CERTAINLY NOT anything I've done to deserve it. It's just Him! It's who He is! It's what He does!

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen." Eph 3:17b-21 (emphasis mine)

And again I say AMEN!!!!

Scars

I had a little "accident" while I was at my sister's house and burned my arm with a curling iron. Actually, it was a 2nd degree burn. Long story. I'm a klutz sometimes. Anyway, the skin has finally pulled off and since I've got a little tan there's now a nice patch of "fresh meat" on my forearm. I've been putting medicine on it and now I'm using some aloe to try and protect my skin. I'm sure I'm gonna have a really nasty scar. My mom had severe burns from a grease fire years ago on her hands and arms and now there's some ugly scars there. She's really embarrassed by them.

Isn't this just like our spiritual lives? I have scars. Scars on my soul. Some of the wounds are scabbed over and at times - given the right circumstances - those scabs can come off and those wounds will bleed and bleed. Then God will have to scab those wounds over again. Heal them. However, there are scars on my soul (and the ones on my body) that tell a story. A story of a time of disobedience that the Lord allowed me to suffer an "injury" to remind me the next time. To be able to look at the scar and remember. Just like the scar on my arm. The next time the curling iron is falling to the floor, I'll let it. I won't try to stop it. That's what the scar taught me. That's what the scars in my soul have taught me.

Are they ugly? YES. Are they embarrassing? ABSOLUTELY. But they make me remember. They teach me. Do I wish they weren't there? Of course. But then I wouldn't be able to sit here and tell you of the soothing medicine of the Spirit. How God, in His infinite love for me, saw my injury, allowed the pain, then picked me up, dusted me off, dressed my wounds and healed me. That's what He does. That's growth. That's life in Him. Will there be more scars in my life? Likely so. I'm sure I'll fall again, I'll drop it again. BUT GOD! God will once again heal my soul. It may leave a scar. An ugly thing that is embarrassing and sensitive, but oh the story I can tell! The story of my Abba Father who longs to heal every boo-boo in my life!

I love Him so much! I just can't wait to see the scars He bore for me! To kiss His feet and thank Him for taking my wounds. For bearing my pain. For loving me enough to die in my place! To touch the scars in His hands and thank Him, face to face! Oh what joy!

Thank God for battles won!!

He is my everything and I will worship Him!!

Praise You In This Storm

Isn't it just like the enemy to do his best to bring us crashing back to earth? He's not been happy with how deeply I've been in the Word this week so he's doing his best to rattle me. I've got news for him, however, "greater is He that is in me then he that is in this world"! My Jesus has already defeated him and I am His child and I will not go quietly!

I praise you Father right here in the middle of this storm that the enemy is using! You are my life! You are my joy and my salvation! Thank you for your sheltering arms and for your protection! Strengthen me and mend my broken heart Lord! I love you!! I praise you!! YOU ARE GOOD AND YOUR MERCIES ENDURE FOREVER!!! PRAISE YOU FATHER!!!

Jim Cymbala

Here's the link to purchase downloadable sermons from Jim Cymbala. Enjoy!

http://www.brooklyntabernacle.org/bookstore/category.cfm?cID=201&StartRow=37

This puts you right around the Holy Spirit series. You'll have to go thru to find them all but they're together. 12 sermons and WATCH OUT! God's gonna get all up in your kitchen!

Verne's CD

Hey everyone. One of my dear friends, Verne Phifer, has FINALLY debuted his first CD!! You can go to www.cdbaby.com or www.digstation.com to either purchase the CD or download it to your MP3. Once you get to the site type "Revealed" in the search and look for Verne's name. It's WELL worth the money! Verne is a great guy who loves the Lord and LOVES sharing his talent for the glory of our Lord! You won't be disappointed!

Not to mention I'm singing backup for him and my man is playing drums! WOOHOOO! Go get the CD! You'll LOVE it!

Here's the song with the post below!

This is long but WELL worth it!!

Holy Spirit Rain Down!!

Ya'll I just love that song! If you know it, take a sec to sing the chorus! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!!!!!!!

Ok, now let me tell you what else the Lord's been showing me this week. (and it's only Tuesday!) My sweet friend Bonita gave me some CD's of Jim Cymbala's "Holy Spirit" lessons! Can I just say...WOW!!! That man, that church is anointed by God! WHOA!!! Last night I listened the sermon titled "Walking in the Spirit" and he was speaking from Gal 5:13-18 and my, oh my! There's way too much for me to try and share but some of the highlights were the battle between walking in the flesh and walking in the Spirit. The flesh desires everything CONTRARY to the Spirit's desires. For example, every time the Spirit says stop and pray the flesh says do it later, but what about the laundry, what will people think, etc. We have to ask the Spirit to help us remove our flesh desires not just once but daily or if you're anything like me, HOURLY!!!

He then spoke about Christians who focus on manifestations of the Spirit (or feelings) and how they don't ever develop character in the Spirit. They're always just looking for the "feeling" we get from Him and not the wisdom and change we get in our way of thinking. WHOA! If we follow Jesus we have to keep in step with Him. We can't receive Him into our lives and then go off on our own route. (sorta ties into what I talked about yesterday - doing it my way) If Jesus takes even 2 steps to the right, I wanna take the same 2. If He goes the long way around and I seem to think the shorter distance is straight, I BETTER go the long way with Him!!

He ended the sermon with reminding me that whichever I feed will be the one to grow. If I feed my flesh, it will dominate me but if I DAILY take in His Word it will begin to dominate my life!!! He also reminded us that there are absolutely NO unimportant moments in my life! Every moment in my day God is using me for His glory. Hard to get my brain around that one, especially as I'm sorting laundry, but I'm glorifying my Father by caring for the ones He's blessed me with! Imagine that, dirty socks can glorify God!!!! Love it.

I pray that each of you will stay in the Word. There's so much there. Even if you read the same verse day after day it will be new every morning! Believe me! If you don't believe me, try it for 10 days! Pick a verse, ask the Lord to reveal something new to you thru, read it and see if He provides! He's so AWESOME!

Envelope epiphany!

I've had another revelation from God today! Man, He's good! ;-)

I'm doing Jennifer Rothschild's "Fingerprints of God" Bible study - lovin' it! - and we had an activity today that I wanted to share. I'm going to tell you how to do it but you HAVE to do it as well! It's so cool! Remember that it's her idea - NOT MINE!!

You'll need 3 envelopes and a small piece of paper.
Write "God the Father" on one envelope.
Write "Jesus" on the next.
Write your name on the 3rd.
On the small piece of paper draw a rock and write the name "Jesus" inside the rock.

Read John 14:20. The last phrase says "I am in you" so take your rock drawing and put it in the envelope with your name on it and seal it.

Read Eph 1:13 and write the name on your envelope's closure of the One who has sealed you.

Back to John 14:20 which also says that you are in Christ so put your envelope inside the one marked Jesus and seal it. The verse also says "I am in my Father" so put the sealed "Jesus" envelope inside "God the Father"s envelope. You are hidden in your Savior and He is in you and Jesus can never be separated from God!! Is that cool or what? Nice little visual of our security in Christ!

So what's my epiphany you ask? Well, I found some small card envelopes that I had so I grabbed them for this activity. I had some difficulty finding some paper so I grabbed this cute little pad that is colorful and even has a Scripture on it but it wasn't "small". In fact, it was just about the same size as my envelopes. So, I just folded it in half. Not in the directions, but I could make it work.

As I began putting my envelope into the Jesus envelope it was difficult, kinda tricky, but I finally got it in, but it wouldn't seal properly, kinda overstuffed. Then as I tried to cram and stuff Jesus into the Father well...you can imagine. WOULDN'T WORK! This was my epiphany!

Disobedience, yet again!! Did I blatantly disobey? No, I got the things the directions told me to, I wrote what I was supposed to on them, BUT the directions said "SMALL" piece of paper. Was my paper small? NO, but I thought I could just do it my way and it would be fine. OUCH! Isn't that what I do so many times in so many situations? Not total breaking of the rules, just bending here and there to suit my purpose. WOW!

So I redid the activity, following the directions precisely and needless to say, it worked perfectly! Imagine that!

Father forgive me for my disobedience. Thank you for using whatever you need to get my attention. Strengthen me to always follow your directions, not skipping any detail or "tweaking" them to suit myself! Thank you for sending Christ to seal me as your child to give me security in life's storms, to be my rock and my salvation! You are good! I love you Father! Abide in me! In your precious Son's name I pray and ask it...

Here they are!!!

This was a little excursion we took on a ferry! The kids were having a blast and were totally amazed that we could drive our van onto a boat! My middle son kept closing his eyes in all the pictures because I made him take off his sunglasses. My oldest thinks he a rocker/surfer/Aussie and the baby is always happy when it's picture time!

Well are those just the cutest little beach bums you've ever seen or what?! They had an absolute blast and the weather couldn't have been more perfect! God again showing me how much He loves me by letting me be the mom to these GREAT kids and then giving us such an AWESOME weekend! My guys love the beach as much as I do!

Our 2nd day there the lifeguard comes up and calls everyone out of the water for a shark sighting. My middle son says "It's probably just a leopard shark mom and those things are harmless!" Yes, my little Jeff Corwin and Steve Irwin know EVERYTHING there is to know about sharks! haha (our old neighbor gave them those nicknames) After a few hours we went back into the water but I always made sure there was plenty of "bait" for the sharks around us! (other people - haha) God was good and protected us from the creatures of the sea AND from sunburn! ;-)

My Personal Jesus...

As soon as I typed that I thought of the old Depeche Mode song and yes, I'm embarrassed to admit that I even know that song! ;-) Like I said before, I've been a beach bum the last 2 days and it has been glorious! I'd love to stay a few more days, but I need to get home - and stay there a while!

I've been talkin to the Lord a lot the last couple of days and been in the Word more than usual because I feel the enemy trying to find a foothold on me. He's relentless, but I have the power thru my Jesus! I WILL WIN!! Don't you love that assurance as a child of God?

I've trying to memorize Scripture - which with my thyroid problems is quite a task - (yes thyroid issues cause short term memory loss) and I'm working on Isa 49:16 which says "See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me." I love that! Every time my Abba Father opens up His Holy hands He sees ME!! AMAZING!! That's what I love about serving God. He's personable! He longs for relationships! He doesn't just sit in heaven eating fat-free, calorie-free bon bons (my idea of heaven, haha) but He's working! He's working in our lives, on behalf of us and on behalf of the entire world! AMAZING! That's why I love my "own, personal, Jesus. Someone who hears your prayers, Someone who cares"! (yes that's Depeche Mode lyrics) hahahaa

I'll try to post some pic's of my beach bum babies too!!

Here I go again.........

Well after talking about how glad I was to be home, don't you know I took off again! My sister in New Bern had shoulder surgery about a month ago and I was planning to come over to hang out with her - and hit the beach - while she was recovering. I was certain our little excursion with the van would've cancelled those plans, but my sis wanted me to come so bad that she offered to help with the $$ so the kids and I could come. Really, her house needs a good cleanin' since she can't so of course I think that's the REAL reason! Anyway, God was merciful in our travels and here I am out of town, AGAIN!!!

I really don't mind since this is the ONLY "vacation" we'll get this summer and my kids have been SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO patient with all the changes we've gone thru that they deserve a little something special! I ask that you pray for us as we hit the beach tomorrow as there have been 2 shark attacks around this area in the last 2 weeks! (she didn't give me this info til I was already here) Guess we'll be leavin' the boogie boards at the house!! I'll be poppin' on to keep you up on our adventures. I can't wait to hit the sand tomorrow. I always feel so close to the Lord when I'm on the beach. I feel so small and yet so precious to Him when I'm there - like He made that ocean just for me!!! teehee Here's another PDLAM I always cry when I'm on the beach! STOP IT! You're not supposed to be laughing!! ;-)

Ya'll have a good weekend I know I sure will!!

FINALLY home!!

We were finally able to make it home last night!! Praise God! He's so good to me! If he hadn't provided Jimmy with this AWESOME job and my van had broken down at any other time there's no way we could've gotten it fixed without borrowing from friends/family to get it done (which stinks!) so we were able to get all the repairs we needed and pay for them ourselves. Even if it did take all my school clothes money! ;-) Oh well, I can't wait to share how God provides for that too!!

Like I said my time in WV was quite an emotional roller coaster - as it usually is - but I got to go with my sister and get my niece registered for college and get her books and do all that fun stuff. It was fun for me because I wasn't the one paying! hahaha It did give me a slight taste of what I'll be facing all too soon, however! SCARY!!

So, I'm glad to be home - can't WAIT to go to church tonight and I'm already doing my laundry this morning so I can take my babies to the pool this afternoon! They deserve it after that ride yesterday! Ya'll have a good one and take some time to look for God's fingerprints thru your day! He's there. Just look around!!