Not Forgotten

I would like to ask anyone that is able to please help support this film by voting for it. There is info at the link below about the film.

http://proverbs14verse1.blogspot.com/2012/06/not-forgotten.html

For the Single

For young men:

 A girl worth finding will be lost in Christ, seek HIM and you will find her.

For young ladies:

A girl should become so lost in Christ that a man has to seek HIM to find her. 

Those were quotes on the gift table at the wedding we went to. I thought the message was so beautiful.

There is a Time

For everything there is a time and a season.
That's what I love about Ecclesiasties. It puts everything in it's place. These last couple of weeks have been a mix of so many "times and seasons" that I felt like I was on the verge of a mental breakdown for a while.....don't worry, I'm fine now. :-)
Last week, amidst the craziness of 4-H summer, we had a family friend die, and a wedding all in the same weekend. The mix of the two got me thinking quite a bit.
When a human mind is rushed with all these mixed emotions, suddenly life becomes so much shorter.
We live, we eat, we breath....
We grow up, we get a job, we get married...
We have families, we have losses, we have gains...
But one day we will die.
We will leave behind us loved ones, kisses not given, tears not wiped, regrets to fill an ocean, and yet we will be able to do nothing, change nothing because we will be dead and there's no going back.
It's when I think about these things that life becomes so fragile to me. So often I find myself caught up in my present worries and aurguments that I forget how fragile this life truly is. In my impatience, I so easily try to rush life. Then I look back and wish I had savored that moment.

I think about all the people losing their homes in Colorado right now. I think about how often I grudgingly clean and do chores in my home. If I were one of those people who had lost my home, I doubt that I would be thinking about how hard it was to clean the house. I bet I would be thinking about how I wish I had enjoyed my time there instead.
But, why does it take tragedy to make me think?
Ecclesiastes seems to have the answer to that too. :-) In chapter 7, verse 3 it says, "Sorrow is better than laghter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better." Maybe that's it. Maybe that is why God allows sorrow to be mixed with our joys. Because it gets us to think. It makes us appreciate the joys more.
Mourning over the death of a man married to his wife for 44 years, made the joyous wedding of some dear friends all the richer. Sorrow makes you cherish the joy more. One woman lost her husband, one girl married the man of her dreams. And I stand on the outside and watch. I learn about God's faithfulness, and I learn to love what I have been given.

There is a time for everything, we just need to learn to accept the current time.

Live Life

Some days are wonderful, dreamy, enchanting. Other days make you feel like an untied balloon. You get blown up, then depleted, then blown up, then depleted. It's the days that keep you on your toes that remind you of what life truly is.
For me, each day is a reminder of who I am in Christ, and what He has created me to be. If I believe that He has created me to someday fulfill the role of wife and mother, than cleaning up toddlers potty training messes, dealing with clogged sinks, sopping up the floods from leaky laundry pipes, filling book orders and all the other eventful situations that can pop up in a day are a blessing. They are a training ground for the role God has me to fulfill.
Right now, my role is to serve in my family. If while I serve my family I am preparing for my future role, then it's all BLESSING.  - I just have to keep reminding myself of that fact every few minutes.

God created me to serve, to help others, to follow Him and to spread the Gospel.
As I was cleaning up steamy litter stew (the cat litter box got filled with water from the leaking pipe) I was reminded of a movie we once watched about a missionary lady in Africa. I wish I could remember her name, but it has escaped my mind. In the village that she and her husband were working there was a dump. Not a nice green bin, but a mountain of filth and garbage. It was in that dump that the poorest, sickest people lived. No missionary had ever gone there because of how terrible the flies were. But, this lady knew that these people needed to hear the gospel just as much as everyone else. So, she went there. She wore no mask, rather she held the little filthy, naked children in her arms. She did not wear a look of disgust, but of love and care.

I got to thinking, if I can't clean out a litter box, or some messy underpants, what's going to happen when God calls me into the filthiest of places to spread His name.

My problem is often not that I don't know how I should be reacting to frustrating situations, but that I choose not to be thankful. When I'm thankful then suddenly all these problems don't seem so bad. As I scrubbed litter boxes out, I suddenly had a reason to be happy.
I was thankful.
I was thankful for the homemade drain-o recipe that my Mom and sister were using in our clogged drains.
I was thankful for a scrub brush so I didn't have to use my bare hands.
I was thankful that my little brother at least had a desire to clean up his own mess.
I was thankful for power sprayers.
I was thankful for the beautiful day.

Then I laughed.
Because really, when it's all said and done, my crazy morning could put Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors" to shame.

Life is not a china vase. It's meant to be lived. When we live in a state of thankfulness we come to find out that all along we weren't really living it to the fullest.

Now the messes are cleaned, the book orders are packaged, the emails sent out. Now I can breathe. But I feel wonderful. I'm not crabby and angry like I normally would feel after a morning like this. I feel happy. God opened my eyes and showed me all the gifts in my morning. Yeah, I had to wash away a lot of filth and grim to see them - literally. But now that I see them, I wonder how it is that I usually miss them.

I am blessed!

I AM BLESSED BEYOND MEASURE!!!
And so are you.

Give Thanks

Today is one of those days that I look around and think, "I'm supposed to give thanks?!" And then I start to get creative, like thanking God for homemade Drain-o recipes and power sprayers. There's always something to give thanks for, it's just a matter of finding it.

 As I told my sister, there will always be things you want, there will always be things you get and there will always be things that you don't get. Living life to the fullest is being thankful for what you do get - even if you don't like it.

So what are you thankful for today????

Quote

Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.
Emily Bronte

Courage

            When you hear the word courage what do you think of? I think of brave men and women like William Wallace, Amy Carmichael, Thomas Jefferson, Dolly Madison, and Stonewall Jackson. I think of swords, bows, and arrows; fire, bombs, and blood; soap boxes, microphones, and crowds. It’s not often that I think of myself, or my sisters and brothers. We just aren’t those kinds of people. I hear battle cries and passionate speeches, not the voices of those I hold so dear. Yet, are we not all called to be courageous? Aren’t we all told we can make a difference, change the world? Somehow, it seems that we’ve dug a large trench between the famous heroes of history and our own simple selves. There seems to be some strange void keeping us from being great men and women like them. But, it doesn’t need to be that way. We can be courageous right here, in our homes, with the people around us. Spelling the word “courage” with seven simple words we can understand the depths of courage. We too can be courageous.

Christ

To be courageous we must know the courage of Christ. It is easy to think that in all His perfection He felt no fear. But, Christ was God made man. He knows what fear is. Yet, when all odds were against Him, He willingly conquered sin through the greatest act of love. He took the sins of the world to the cross. His burden was far greater than any that we bear and still He took it. In His death He bore our sins, and in His resurrection he conquered sin. This was the greatest act of courage that Christ gave us, but He was courageous even before that time. When the Pharisees mocked or questioned Him, He did not hesitate to give answers that would make many of us cringe. The truth flowed from His tongue whether it pleased or displeased people. He rebuked the rich young ruler and He boldly rebuked His own disciples. Christ was a man of courage.

Optimistic

Optimism is a huge part of courage because how you view things is how you will act. If something is frightening to you then you will be hesitant to face it. If you are fearful of a situation it will only make the situation worse. If we look as positively as possible at difficult situations, they will appear brighter. Trusting in God’s all powerful plan gives us the hope an assurance to face any task or situation. We need to have the courage to smile, even when life looks bleak. Having the courage to smile, even when we are afraid, can help us make a bigger impact, to touch more lives.

Unafraid

Fear is one of the greatest tools that the Devil has against us. Nothing will drive us away from taking a stand, speaking up, saving lives, like fear will. As Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Fear stops us from moving. It hinders our every step, paralyzing our actions. Only when we conquer our fears and hand them over to God can we be courageous. Trusting in His sovereign power and authorship, we can move on, through the darkness, onto the stage, into the seas, wherever He sends us He will give us the courage to go.

Risk

Being courageous is taking risks; Big or small. The board game Risk is a prime example of what risks are like in real life. If you roll the right number you can take over the country. However, if you roll the wrong number you lose your armies. So it is in life. Risks are, well, risky. You could lose everything. But you will never, NEVER, win if you don’t take the risk. You have to push yourself out of your comfort zone. As you push, practice. Don’t go out there unprepared. Learn the skills, get the knowledge and go out there in confidence. Stand up for what’s right and don’t be afraid. Help those that need your help. Don’t give up. No risks are easy. It’s a risk. They’re risky.

Alert

One of the saddest realities of life is that there are opportunities and moments when heroes are needed all the time, but we miss them because we don’t open our eyes. If we aren’t striving to be courageous and help other we won’t. We won’t see the bruises, we won’t see the dejection, we won’t hear the lies, and we won’t fight the fight. We will simply miss it all. If we want to be courageous then we need to be alert and ready. We need to know the skills to save lives, to give a speech, to write a letter, to give a rebuke.  We need to have the knowledge to explain why evolution is false, why abortion is murder, why homosexuality is an abomination. If we aren’t ready and we don’t know, how can we help? And if we don’t open up our eyes, how will we ever see our chance to make a difference?

Gutsy

Being gutsy is much like taking risks, but it’s taking the risks that most people wouldn’t dare take. A major part of being gutsy is being bold, being willing to say what no one else will. There are definitely intimidating people in this world, but the gutsy person will not let that hinder doing what God wants them to do. With courage they will face the giant like David. Who cares about what other people think and say? It’s none of our business anyways. If someone is defying what you know to be right then face them and say something.

Eager

Courage takes action…now. You can’t wait. If you just wait around for a situation in which you can be a hero to present itself, you will be waiting for a long time. Start small. You don’t have to rescue a hostage as your first mission. Be eager to show courage in the small things. Defend others, stand up for what’s right, jump to help at every given opportunity. But, don’t sit and wait. It just doesn’t work.

Courage is a big deal. Many people dream of being heroes and making a difference, but most of those people just aren’t willing to pay the price. Most of the greatest heroes of history never considered themselves to be great. They were just everyday people like you and me. The difference is they had the courage. Do you?