How cool! I won?!!!

When I was given the "Fruit of the Spirit Graphic" to display on my blog a few months ago it kind of opened up the blogosphere to me. Yes, I'd been keeping a blog for over a year, but I guess I never realized there was a whole blogging community of Christian women out there.

But after receiving the Fruit of the Spirit Graphic, I started visiting some of the other sites that display the graphic... from time to time, I've browsed and following little rabbit trails throughout various blogs. I've found some amazing spiritual content out there and some just plain ol' great writing, too! One day I came across a blog with cute little purses embroidered with scriptures for sale. I showed my daughter and we oohed and aahed over them for a while. A few weeks later, I saw that Iris of Sting My Heart was giving away one of these cute little purses... but I never win anything and I didn't really consider entering. But, you know how some thoughts become nagging? Well, I thought about it several times during the day and ended up talking myself into going back to the blog and posting to enter the drawing.

Guess what? I won! It is such a blessing I cannot even tell you how much! I think God hand- picked this one for a little encouragement. The last few weeks have been some of the toughest of the last year for me. God knew... and God blessed.

Of course, it was just a terrific ending for a beautiful week after the birth of our little princess-grandbaby on Wednesday!

Thank you, Iris and God bless you! (I hope you had a wonderful birthday!)

We're Royalty!

We have a granddaughter! And she is beautiful, of course!

A friend of mine sent me an ecard with this verse.....

"Children's children are a crown to the aged..." Prov. 17:6

If I can just ignore the "aged" part for a minute.... what a thrill to have my first "crown".

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Yet I will rejoice in the LORD!

I never would've guessed that God would use Habakkuk to encourage me. It just seems like a doom and gloom book. But, when I got to the very last section of chapter 3.... THIS:

Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign LORD is my strength,
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights.

In "today's terms" Habakkuk is saying... the bank account may be empty, the pantry may not have any food, the labor may not produce any income.... yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will find my joy in the Lord of my salvation. He makes me sure-footed in the rockiest of places... He is my strength.

I later read the first chapter of Oswald Chamber's biography. I won't go into the context for brevity's sale, but Chambers was quoted as saying, "I don't care what God DOES, it's what God IS that I care about." The writer went on to explain that God's actions can be very confusing, but God Himself never is.

It is just another reminder that I give circumstances way too much power in my life. I might even have to admit that sometimes I focus too much on what God does.

Sometimes I just need to sit and adore Him and nothing more.

The God We Worship Can Save Us from the Fire

I can never get over how kind and generous so many people are. We are also blessed to see the Lord answer numerous prayers.

First of all, two friends who had lost jobs, found new ones! We prayed and prayed for this and are so very thankful to the Lord. Mark and I understand what they went through... we empathize with every person we hear about who have entered this little "club" that no one wants to belong to, and I pray fiercely for them. One of these families had endured a two year long job search, and the other only a few days. You never know what God will ask of you. It goes to show that everyone's story will be different. If you compare our story with each of the above, they are all decidedly different. There are no cookie-cutter Christians. God has differing and beautiful plans for each of our lives.

When we encounter a trial:

• God may choose to deliver us from the fire, which builds our faith.
  
• God may choose to deliver us through the fire, which refines our faith. (1 Peter 1:6-7)
• God may choose to deliver us by the fire into His arms, which perfects our faith. (Hebrews 12 1-2)

Now, on to report more of God's goodness.... God's people are the most amazing of His creation.... :-)

• A card came in the mail with a gift for school supplies and a few days later it was followed by a small package.... the movie "Facing the Giants" was inside with a note saying that they thought we needed our own copy. How incredibly thoughtful! I know I will watch this again and again because God has used it for great encouragement when I've been down
• Every week, I deliver bread to a family in need. This family has been blessing us back with their excess produce.
  
• Someone else shared some delicious cheese and several other goodies with us.
• Wonderful people from church gave us a bunch of baby clothes and things their daughter had outgrown, for our soon-coming granddaughter. I feel bad that we cannot do more to help prepare for this precious little one's arrival... so it was a very sweet feeling to have something to give to my son and daughter-in-love to help out.
• Some ladies at church hosted a baby shower for our daughter-in-love.... it really helped to fill in those final items that were needed.
• I mentioned my birthday a few posts ago... but I don't think I mentioned that I had the nicest gifts in the world. First some money gifts from our parents and grandparents -- I got something I wanted (to help me keep positive thoughts) and then something I needed... actually my daughter and I both needed shoes, so I got some for each of us. Mark was at his parents the week of my birthday and so my mother-in-law sent a birthday cake she made and comfy pajamas (which I also needed!) with Mark when he came home. The kids all had extremely thoughtful gifts for me, too. It was a blessed day.
  
• We thought we didn't have dental insurance, but one day I noticed our insurance card still said "dental" on the front. We checked into it and we do still have coverage, at least until our COBRA runs out. Great timing, because our daughter needs to have her wisdom teeth out. However... remember the problem we were having with her congenitally missing tooth? Well, the problem has grown into an extremely complicated and expensive one. Please mention this to the Lord in your prayers. We have no idea how this could possibly work out! But, God surely has a way and we need to have His guidance in it.
• Mark has gotten a little bit of business, but it is still very far from where it needs to be. He's spent his time doing lots of marketing, improving our Internet presence, taking courses for more certifications, writing a Continuing Ed class for the Board of Realtors, etc. But the fruit is still slow in coming. The housing market is sluggish, so that is a major ingredient. Mark is terrific at doing the inspections and the Lord opened this door... so I have no doubt that this will work out eventually. But, there are difficult decisions to make while waiting for business to come and this is heavy on my heart. Please pray about this if you think of us from time to time. God needs to clearly direct in this situation.

Psalm 126:4-7 (The Message)

And now, God, do it again—
bring rains to our drought-stricken lives
So those who planted their crops in despair
will shout hurrahs at the harvest,
So those who went off with heavy hearts
will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.

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Seeing His Power

I was reading a beautiful sermon by John MacArthur today and although it is all terrific, I thought I'd share just a paragraph. It might minister to some of you as it has me. He was preaching on Philippians 4:13 "I can do everything through him who gives me strength."

He (the Apostle Paul) found his contentment in the manifest strength of Christ that comes to the believer when he has exhausted his human resources. Now let me translate that into what I'm saying...contentment is a byproduct of distress. Contentment comes when you experience the sustaining power of Christ in those times when you have no human strength. To him who has no might, God increases strength. If you've never been there, maybe you've never experienced it. Paul says, "I'm content, I've seen the power of God." We should be praying, you know, for enough distress in our life, for enough difficulty in our life to cast us on Christ that we might see His power explode in our behalf and therein to be content.

We've definitely seen God's power explode in our behalf. Not only in meeting our physical needs, but ministering to us and pulling us close to Him so that we would grow stronger in our relationship with Him. I cannot imagine a better classroom for learning to trust God and to love Him better.


You can read the whole of the sermon here.