HOOOOOOOOO! CONFIRMATION IS TOMORROW!

Don't forget to submit in confirmation to your leaders hor! :P
Anyway, how's your week with God?! This saturday is national day, after service there's nothing to do but they are deciding to go for kbox and many more :D Think of something to do bah! Hee!

This week's entries all got story to read, cool eh?! If you want more story, please do leave comment in the tagbox. Or if you guys want testimony, videos, or anything else, just leave your suggestion in the tagbox! :D

Enjoy today's entry! :P
{A story taken from a website, cant rly rmb which}

A question was thought about as I was hearing of people in other countries having to hide the bible, or be punished due to laws of the land. The question was this: In a country where we don't have to hide the Bible, how many of us DO? I can tell you right now that I have 5 or 6 Bibles. The cursor on my computer is a Bible with a cross, I can change the cursor to many different symbols of religion. (a dove, mother Mary, scripture) I wish I could say that I never change my cursor to anything, and that my Bibles are always in sight. However, I can tell you friends, that my Bibles are lost half the time. 75% of the time, I am looking up the scriptures online, because it takes less time. LESS TIME. I often am convicted that Jesus didn't do things in worldly timely manner. In fact, reading on the life of Jesus we would find that Jesus took time to do things right. Jesus took time to listen, He didn't rush through anything He was teaching. Why do I try to rush through learning? Because time even in the life of a housewife is hectic. I have had people say, "Well, a housewife without children has all the time in the world." A housewife is never short on things to do. Running a household with or without children is time consuming. (Granted, with children is more hectic.) However, I often wonder, if we would all slow down, and take a little more time on the important things, and less time on the mundane, wouldn't we be better off? More time on Reading God's Word, Less time on reading up on the latest news. More time on building relationships with other believers, Less time on making sure the house is picture perfect before inviting others over. More time on making sure we are feeding people who are hungry, Less time on going to Weight Watchers, and going on the latest diet to create a slim figure. More time on listening to those that are hurting, Less time talking about what we should be doing. More time on Prayer, Less time on Worry. More time on Worship, Less time on latest trends of fashion. More time on Hugs, Less time on tears. More time on loving people, Less time wasted on hate, and anger. More time..... We have 24 hours in a day, 365 days in a year, yet....Time always seems to disappear.

With the New Year fast approaching, we will all be making our New Year Goals. This tradition is a good time to reflect on where we have been in the past year, and how we are going to grow in the New Year to come. One of my goals for the New Year is to send more cards out to family and friends. This new year I am hoping to have a deeper connection with others. I would like to have a group of lady friends that we would get together and go out. There is a ladies group in my church, however...there are not any ladies in the church my age. Don't get me wrong, I really like the ladies group, but having peers around your own age group is nice to have as they are where you are in life. I find myself struggling to have something to say with the group of grandmothers that get together right now in our church. My second goal is to either have a 30hr/week job, or to come up with a course of study to go to school for that would help me find a job that I would be good at. Right now, I clean the church, and I love it. I have applied for other cleaning jobs, but haven't been called to any. Third goal is to lose weight. I have even started looking on Ebay for some exercise tapes, and we have already started adding veggies to our diets more. My final goal of the new year is to be able to know when to keep my mouth shut. lol...

It is so easy to make friends when we are children...you just ask the person to play a game, and through the playing, you form friendships. As an adult..I find it harder to make friends. It seems like the people around me are not in the same car I am in. I am married, but have no children. This is an odd category to be in. While there are many many couples in the church I attend...they are either parents or grandparents. Or they have attended college together, and now are just starting off in life, which is behind where I consider myself to be on the road. At times, I feel like I am riding in a two seater car...with just Jeff being my only friend. While Jeff has a job, and talks to people outside of the church family. My job is at the church, and I am not expanding out into the community. However, even with my husband having more people to be able to talk to, after having been in this town for a year...we had our first company to the apartment on New Year's Day. It was a So-So day, even though, we were worn out from the night before. I have friends that I have made online...wonderful friends. I have been a housewife for two years, and I am finding that I need to get out more...as I am starting to lose the natural ability to make friends. Making friends in my comfort zone of down-home, or online, or even while I was on a job was easy. I find that being out of a comfort zone, and without a job where I work around a lot of people...that I don't know what to say to people. Small talk is getting harder to come up with. I miss the good old days when you picked someone to play on your team, and you were friends by the end of the game.

Today---- I got up, got ready for the day...and as soon as my feet found the floor, I had an off day. I looked around and saw work all around me to be done. I saw dishes to be done, vacuuming that had been put off, Trash that hadn't made it to the trash can, a lot of surfaces that needed some dusting, and of course Lunch needed to be cooked. I let it all heap up on my shoulders, and found the weight to be too much to handle. Which got me to thinking how many times in our lives do we look around for the "bad" stuff, and not look for the "good" stuff within our day. So, I am making a list of "Good" stuff to think about, for each "Bad" that I had in my day.

BAD= dishes
GOOD= I have a plate to eat from, and pans to cook in. Many people don't. I have running water to wash my dishes in, there are some that don't.

BAD=vacuuming
GOOD= I have the ability to run a vacuum cleaner, I own a vacuum cleaner, I have a rug to vacuum. Some don't...

BAD=Trash to be picked up.
GOOD= Having Trash to pick up means that I have a lot of things, because if you don't own hardly anything there is not a lot of clean up to be done.

BAD=Dusting
GOOD= Dust is just a part of life, everyone has dusty areas of there life, so I am never alone in having dust.

BAD= having to make Lunch again!
GOOD= there are people who are starving, that would love to have the food, I am complaining about having to cook.

Let's all look for the "GOOD" in Our lives.

When I think about God, the first emotion that comes is Love. The first verse I think of in the Bible is "For God so loved us that he gave his only begotten Son, so that we can have everlasting life".. To think that God loves me more than He loved his own child. That is a concept that is hard to understand. To know that God loves for us is easy. To accept that love and not feel like it is conditional is hard in today's society. It a society that has advertising that promotes you will be loved only if: skinny, part of the "in" crowd, and of course you must be sexy! I'm so glad that God loves me regardless. If I have a bad day, God still loves me. If I speak the wrong words, God will forgive me and still love me. I cannot lose God's love. Friends may come, and friends may go, but God will always be there! God is everything to everyone all the time! When you think about that, it is amazing that God takes that much time for everyone who calls upon His name. I love God. God loves me. I'm so glad that fact will never change. It's a stable core to have when life is rolling up and down.

I am forever reminded that God loves me. I have a husband that listens to me, when I need to be heard. I have wonderful parents that love me no matter what kind of mood I am in. My sister and I love each other, and when times call for it, are very close. I know I can call on my sister anytime. She always has time to listen, laugh, or be critical of my life...depending on the day. Some people on the outside looking in, would think that I have nothing. We have a car that is falling apart, I don't always have a new outfit to wear. From time to time, we have enough for me to buy one new outfit, and I mix and match it with other clothes. Sort of an old shirt meets new pants type thing. My hair is the same style every season, I occasionally trim the bangs, to try to make it look different. Living 3 hours from the town I grew up in...People there look at me different...they think I have really made something being married, and having moved twice since being married. The thing is that People will always have a certain opinion based on looks, based on what a person drives, or wears. It's all unimportant. In the long run, no-one is going to remember what I had on today, by the end of the week. I am starting to look at my life through God's eyes... Through God's eyes...He gave me wonderful parents, a sister that I could treat better, a husband that loves me through everything, I have a place to live each month, no danger of the heat being shut off, I have a bed to lay down in each night. I've been blessed to own a computer so that I can share my thoughts with everyone out there. This last August, God gave me a job. I can say this in complete confidence, I didn't apply for this job, a member of the church approached me and asked if I would like to take over cleaning the church. I was to be paid twice a month...the person that writes out the checks approached me and offered a weekly check. So...needless to say...God has really blessed me. If we all stop long enough, we can all be Thankful for what we have. It is in focusing on the "don't have's" that brings down a persons Spirit.

God doesn't want to be in the passenger seat, He wants to be the Driver in our lives." What does it mean to have someone else drive? In my case, my husband usually is the person who drives our car. I never thought of all the trust that a passenger puts in the person driving the car. A passenger is sitting on the sidelines enjoying the view as the driver handles all problems. The driver has to hit the brakes if cut off, or approaching a red light. The driver must be alert to all possible problems on the road. Driving conditions, other drivers, traffic lights, stop signs, potholes, speed bumps, speed limits and pedestrians to name a few. The passenger on the other hand...has a great seat, can play with the radio, or watch the clouds in the sky, has a window to look at scenery, can even rest if tired. That is what it is like to hand your life over to God. It's like being a passenger. You have time to play, rest, and trust that God as the driver in your life will make everything okay. God is looking out for you. He is seeing the potholes that we can't see. God knows if the traffic light will be on go or stop. Speed bumps and other people will enter our lives daily, and God will handle it, if we just let Him in the driver's seat. If it's raining in our lives, and it's hard to see, we just hand the steering wheel to God. If it's sunny and bright out, we still hand the wheel to God so we can enjoy the scenery of the day. Handing over the "Car Keys" to God can be scary at first, but soon...you will be set-back in the passenger seat, relaxing and listening to the sweet sounds of Peace, Love, Joy, and Hope. I'm learning to love the passenger seat...without the worries of trying to drive!!

I had for the past month been pouting like a three year old about not being able to go home for Christmas. Never mind the fact that my parents had been at my house for 4months. I was missing my down home roots. Missing the community that I love. (The same community that I am also glad to be away from at times.) I kept asking God ...WHY?? Why on earth did we have a car that had so many issues? Then..I was online last week..and was looking over vehicles that I thought we could never own. Then seeing the link to the credit application, I said to my husband...well, what do you think? The worst that can happen is that they say no. He agreed. Then we looked over our income, decided on a payment we could easily afford, and applied. We prayed that night that God who is in control of everything would grant us the vehicle we applied for. I just want to say that God did not give us the Truck we wanted. He gave us the Truck we never saw coming. We were approved for a loan, but the GMC that we looked at was not available due to mileage. So, we were approved for a 1997 Chevy S10. I was skeptical at first. Then we test drove it. oooh, how wonderful to have everything working!! We looked it all over, saw that it had a 6 month warranty on it, and decided we would see if anything else would be approved. It was the only truck on the lot that was approved. We accepted it. We thanked God. God blesses us everyday, and a lot of those blessings are overlooked. We started counting our blessings for the month of December so far... My husband works for a company that gives out a Christmas Bonus each year. This year the bonus was twice the size as last year. So, we were able to stock up on groceries---mainly bought a lot of canned veggies, and canned items, as we do not have a lot of freezer room. We were able to buy a TV, VCR, and DVD...not a need, but a want....so we're now able to watch the movies we have. We're looking at going down home for Christmas. Brother Eugene and family, gave us a desk that they no longer use for the computer, it is a LOT better than the one that we had. Jeff's dad came to see us before going to GA for Christmas, and He gave us $50 for Christmas. My parents are doing well health wise, and we are going to be able to help them a little bit in the money department, as the month of January is looking really tight for them. We are able to start a small savings account!! After counting these blessings we realized that we are only on December 16th. God is just SOO GOOD to those that turn to Him!!

In closing......

Heavenly Father, I pray that you use my words to touch the hearts of others, Lord. Let them realize I am not bragging about what we have, but rather I am bringing all Glory to You!

I am bringing these things up to show what you can do to help improve our situations.
I thank YOU Father, for all you give us. I thank you as it is All in Your hands Lord!

In Jesus Name, Amen!!

Does anyone ever notice that everything has a web address on it anymore? Even my soda pop I am drinking has a web address, so I decided to go to the web address. When the page loaded up--there was before me everything imaginable with the soda logo on it. It reminded me, as I put things into the online shopping cart of how Jesus was tempted with all the worldly things He saw before Him. In remembering that I emptied the online shopping cart, thinking ..."what do I need with a canteen?" This reminds me that the more that a person reads of the Bible the more these things come to mind when we are about to make a mistake. I mean, I'm sure I could have found a use, for a sports bottle, canteen, and another key chain...however, it saved me from another bill on my credit card. I find that when we are about to do something foolish, that God will send a teaching to mind. Jesus spent so much of His time here teaching us, and if we just open our Basic Information Before Leaving Earth (B I B L E) manual. It is all there for us to learn.

Lord,
Make me an oak tree.

Give me roots that are strong in You.

Let me rely upon you for everything.
I wish for you to water me with your knowledge.
Feed me with Your truth.

Make me an oak tree that I may have branches that reach upwards to You in worship.

May my leaves be attractive, and reach other people to share Your love with them.

Lord, make me like an oak tree. Strong in your word.
Watered by your mercy and grace.
Roots that stand firm and sure in You.

That's all I can ask Lord, and then I can speak that I am totally devoted to you.

Your Child...

Jesus Loves Me This I Know...For The BIBLE Tells Me So.....
This song is such a comfort at any age. I find in times of hardship of any kind this little tune will play through my head. Like my own little song from Jesus to Me to remind me that He does love me. In my walk I have discovered that Love is not always just getting what you want. There have in fact been times, I have asked God to give me things that were not in His will. And was grateful later that God did not grant my request. For example...and I am sure most of us have this one....There was a boy that I would have done anything for...and I prayed nightly for God to let the Boy love me back. It didn't happen. But now I am married to a man that is so much better for me than what I wanted in the first place. Now, understand, there wasn't anything wrong with the Boy I wanted as a teenager... However, He just wasn't right for me. God knew that way before I did. Other times in life we need something, and God will hand it to us, before we know that we need it. For example...Knowing we needed to move to Des Moines, and not having the money...we were asking God for a mild winter. God did so much better than that!! A truck that we had been trying to sell...SOLD!! Providing us with enough to move here, and to stock groceries for our first winter in Des Moines. I tell you, there was a lot of praising going on in this household!! So, when life seems to be handing you lemons, and you have forgotten how to make lemonade... just remember...Jesus Loves Me, This I Know for the BIBLE Tells Me So....
AMEN!!

This is part 1 of the whole story! Part 2 shall continue tmr! Hope you'd like it :P {The story is inter-linked by colors}

JIAYOU!