Tuesday

Lessons from Daddy

Today is my daddy’s birthday.  I have a great dad & I am so thankful God chose to make me his daughter.

I have great memories with my dad when I was younger.  From fishing to taking me out on my first date.  I challenged my dad’s patience on many occasions & rarely remember him raising his voice in anger to me.

I learned many lessons from my dad that continue to help me even today.

Self-Sacrifice

As a pastor, my dad was “on-call” all the time, even on his day’s off.  There were many times I remember him getting up in the middle of the night to go to the hospital or to meet with a church member in trouble or having to leave in the middle of a meal.  Dad loved to work on projects at home, but often those projects would have to wait until someone was out of surgery or a conflict was resolved.

More than giving of his time to others, my dad gave of his possessions.  If my parents found out about someone in need, they would always give what they could to help.  I remember a few years ago during a visit to their house, I noticed that the sleeper sofa I grew up with was missing.  When I asked where it was Dad told me they gave it to a family who had no furniture.  It was normal for people  of the community to show up at my parents home needing help.  Mom & Dad, without hesitation would give what food, blankets or other things they could.

I hope that I am passing this on to my children.  Stuff isn’t important, but our relationship with others is.

Speaking the Truth

As a pastor, my dad taught the Bible, not his own philosophy or idea’s.  I grew up knowing that the Word of God is the foundation for my belief’s & not to trust the teachings of others, but line them up with the Word.  This is how my dad taught.

He also mentored & counseled many over the years & they didn’t always hear what they wanted to hear from my dad.  He spoke the truth to them, he didn’t tickle their ears with fluffy encouragement.  He encouraged them in the Word to be who God created them to be.

As a speaker, I pray often that God would give me the boldness to teach His truth and not waiver in the philosophies of the world.  It is easy to tell your audience what they want to hear, make them feel more comfortable where they are.  I want to be the kind of speaker, like my Dad, who teaches the truth, knowing it is up to the listeners if they will hear and obey.

Go into all the world

Evangelism has always been a passion for my dad (& mom).  they have been to several countries sharing the gospel and helping others.  My dad spent countless hours in living rooms sharing with people about the love of God and their need for his salvation.  My dad loves people.  He will talk to anyone about almost anything and the conversation almost always will end with “Do you love Jesus?”.  He always wants to make sure they have had an opportunity to know Jesus.

A passion has been evolving in my heart over the past few years for people, specifically moms raising young children.  My desire is to share with moms the importance of knowing Jesus, not just about him, but knowing him personally.  I want moms to know my Jesus the way I know him.  My dad never feared confronting someone with the gospel & my prayer is that God will give me the same confidence.

Faith

Above all else my dad has taught me through his life, I think his faith has taught me more about God than any other lesson.  God allowed our family to experience some difficult times when I was a pre-teen.  I was old enough to recognize my dad’s unwavering faith that in spite of what was going on, God would take care of us.  Little did I know how my dad’s faith would be the example I needed to develop my own faith in God.  The past several years have been the most difficult ever for our family as God has continued to allow our family to struggle financially.  I learned from my dad what it looks like to look at an impossible situation & know that because of God anything is possible.

I know I am blessed to have a daddy who loves the Lord and loves my mom more now than ever. I just hope he knows how much he is loved.

 

Psalm 1:2 & 2

1Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

2but his delight is in the law of the LORD,

   and on his law he meditates day and night.

Monday

12 Stays of Christmas

My fantastic friend Laura has written an extra special devotional just for Christmas.  This book has been a long time coming as Laura poured her heart into the words that are now in print.
  The 12 Stays of Christmas will bring you back to where our focus should be this Christmas, completely on Christ!


It is only $5.95 so you can use it as a wonderful gift for teachers & friends.



Go to Lauraleeshaw.com to learn more about her book & how to get your own copy.

Saturday

Don’t forget the Source

Just coming off of the Thanksgiving holiday, it is easy to be in a spirit of thankfulness.  And this year, I really had much to be thankful for & I hope you did too.

I just finished up a Thanksgiving project with my kids for their school work.  We made Thanksgiving books. (pics are coming).   They did a variety of activities that helped them to remember the many blessings God has given us.  While glueing pictures to a page, my little girl says to me,

“I’m always thankful for this because I know it is from God.”

What a sweet statement, but my mind took it farther.  How many blessings do I receive that I try to take credit for?

One of the things my little kids did was copy the Doxology & learn to sing it.  I find myself singing this when I’m in the car by myself or at the sink doing dishes.  It is a beautiful song & the words are powerful.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow

Praise Him all creatures here below

Praise Him above ye heavenly host

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

The first line is so important…”from whom all blessings flow”.  This is what Gracie was saying to me in her 6 yr old way, it is all from God.  We don’t create our blessings, nor do we deserve them.  Out of his deep love for us, he continues to pour blessings into our lives.  I don’t understand it, but I am so thankful for it.

Don’t forget the source of the blessings.  Give him the glory.  That is your purpose.

“He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD.” Psalm 40:3

 

Lord, help me to remember you are the only source of my blessings.  All things come from you, the good & the bad.  Give me a spirit of thanksgiving & gratitude.  May I never forget the amazing things you have done in my life and are still doing.

Redecorating

I try not to make many changes in the design of my blog, but I just didn't like the design I had. I had borrowed it from another blog designer(with her permission of course) to use until I knew what I really wanted to do with mine.

So, it is a lot different than what I had & I'm still tweaking on some minor things. But, I wanted to have a design that coordinated with my Ministry site.  Eventually, I will probably move my blog over to my ministry site as a direct link off the site, but for now this will work.

Friday

Taking a little break

I hope you had a most excellent Thanksgiving day yesterday! Our family enjoyed a great, but really cold, day with family. As always, there was too much food but we did our best to eat as much of it as we could. :o)

I'm taking a little break from the blog to do some housework on my blog.

Hopefully, I can get it all done this weekend. But I'm taking my blog offline until I get everything done.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend!

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Tuesday

Thanksgiving Home School

The week of Thanksgiving, I try to have something different for my little kids to do since we are on break from school.  This year I decided to have them make Thanksgiving Notebooks.  I knew I had a lot of stuff saved in my "Thanksgiving" file on my computer to keep us busy for a while.  I also got on the internet & looked through some of my favorite websites to see what they had.

I think I spent at least 2 days printing.  I almost wore out my printer & ran out of paper.

We started by spending some time reading & discussing Psalm 100.  It's a short chapter, but packed with great things.  My older kids are doing a short inductive type study on this chapter.  Tomorrow we will discuss what they learned.  I can't wait to hear from them.

I read one of my many history-type books about the Pilgrims & we talked about what it would be like to live on a boat for 66 days with over 100 people, then try to survive in a new land.

2 of my favorite books are; Samuel Eaton's Day by Kate Waters &  On the Mayflower also by Kate Waters.

Some of the activities I collected for the kids to do were crossword puzzles, word search, simple crafts & copy work.  My oldest one (10y) participating in this is writing a Thanksgiving Day comedy.  We'll see how that comes out.  My younger ones are copying scripture, prayers & writing their own prayers & lists of blessings.  And of course for my 4 & 6 yr old there is plenty of coloring, cutting & glue going on.

For their copy work, I used the notebook pages from Notebookingpages.com.  She also had some great coloring pages.

I also found some cute stuff at Christian Preschool Printables also at abcteach.com

Tomorrow we will finish up & assemble our books.  Some will have more than others, but that is o'k.  I've tried to make it as fun as I can while also teaching them the importance of being thankful, not just this week, but all year long.

It's not much, but it has kept them busy while focusing on the many blessing God has granted us this year.



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Saturday

I've got to stop blinking!

I know that the older I get, the quicker time passes.

Tomorrow, my little girl will turn 6.  Seems like yesterday when my sister & I were walking around Target, picking up some last minute things & trying to get labor to start.  I was already a week past due, nothing new for me, but I was ready to have my baby girl.  It worked...sorta.  I woke up in the middle of the night with nice, regular contractions & no matter what I did they wouldn't go away!  WooHoo!  By 5:30 a.m. I had my baby girl in my arms.

Just a few blinks later and I am shopping with Scott for her birthday gifts. 



I've got to stop blinking!

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