LIFE Verses...

How I love the Living Word of God! So over the years I've taken scripture and called certain ones MINE. I love to give scripture in different ways to family and friends in small and big ways. I've found and purchased or created wall signs, T-shirts, mugs, embroidered, made up great posters from Costco like this one with pictures of my kids and Grands taking Ephesians 2:10 we're God's workmanship, created in Jesus to do good works that God prepared in advance for us to do. It's a super and inexpensive gift for the person (parents) who have everything.

My life verse that I want to live out is found in Micah 6:8 where NIV says: He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. I love that His Word tells me just what He expects me to do in this life! Have I wrestled with living it out? You betcha! But I can sing it (as it's been put to at least 3 tunes that I know) and remind myself how He calls me to live. This is a "primitive" sign that I made and hangs in our reading room.

When I began to homeschool 20 years ago, I placed this scripture in a few different places and we memorized it, quoting it as a heart check often. We call it our family verse: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. Mark 12:29-31

What a challenge to just live it out among the immediate family of 4 then adding more children, kids spouses, plus extended family... WOW - who is our neighbor? Can we love God even more than we do? It's been stenciled and moved it and last year I found a vinyl cutter to order "my" words, sayings and verses on Etsy at

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5746922

Some would say that a life verse should be something you're living out, not something that you try to walk out. I'm just thankful that these verses make us mindful how ALIVE His Living Word truly is!

So for our marriage, I tried to figure out the one that did speak our relationship. It feels one-sided, and that wouldn't be MY side. Dan has lived this one out in a HUGE way over our 28.5 years of marriage. We had a lovely sign made up by Nestlings on Etsy. http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=23140 I ordered one of these as a gift for my parents' 50th anniversary with their "marriage verse" on it too. (It says the year established thru the name in a lighter font if you can't see it here.)
It is taken from Ephesians 5: 1 & 2 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Dan has been the sweet aroma when I've been absolutely foul rotten stench!

For years I have loved Colossians 1:9-12 for my sweetest of friends and Eugene Peterson in The Message put it into the perfect words:
Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven't stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works. We pray that you'll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.

To find the verses that you hope and pray to speak "your life" are a great way to begin 2009. I want to walk in the Living Word. I want to speak the Living Word. I want to live out the Living Word! It is LIFE!

Simple Pleasures in Life...

RiceKrispy Treats & hot air popped popcorn (with REAL butter) ... &

nothing is better when having a GRAND-daughter help you make them and EAT them!

Over-Indulging parents...

Yes we are! But Daddy set up a contract to make the commitment concrete...

and Grace paid for 1/2...
Macy - is a 9 week old doll of a pup, only 1 week home with us - so the chewing, picking up messes, and repeated "DOWN!" and "NO" as she greets our precious GRAND girls is just beginning to feel like "haven't we been here and done this a few too many times!"
Why do we make more jobs for ourselves as parents?!
Oh for the love of giving to the ones we love...

Thankful for homeschooling FREEDOMS!!!

This fall we began a new program for our boys that is funded by the public school system. Since we've been homeschooling for 20 plus years, there was a dramatic war that went on inside of me deciding to do this.
We'll begin to lose our freedoms to the government because I'm entering into this.
We haven't...yet!
Our 13 year old is what the program calls "off-site" - not taking any classes they offer. We have to reply (report) to an advisor via email each week, along with the other curriculum planning/reporting of hours/progress reports. It hasn't been too much of a biggie except they do try to "suggest" what you should do, how to "grade," how to etc....

So in light of this month's Social Studies focus they are asking us to email about,I must share how God orchestrates our homeschool. (I can't really share that with the district office!) We very loosely study where ever our read alouds take us. We began an adult biography last spring called Nine Lives & Running and will be finishing it this week. This fall, I got an excellent Christian kids historical fiction titled Escape to Liechetenstein at a convention because a little girl at a vendor said it was good. (She didn't tell me what it was about.) We just finished that terrific book! As we looked at Grace's curriculum in August, we found it calls for her to read The Hiding Place this year, which I'm very eager to read for the 4th or 5th time.
Now this past Tuesday before Thanksgiving day, we were privileged to hear a local Jewish woman speak of her life during the Holocaust; being taken as a young girl; losing her mother, baby brother, younger sister, and grandmother to their murder as they were separated and she was pointed to the Auschwitz line; her life in captivity; escaping; then her escape from Hungary with her husband & 2 boys to freedom in the U.S.
This is a God-given opportunity & blessing we get to experience time & time again as homeschoolers. It's not coincidence that our natural studies and being open to flexing our schedule are reasons we are thankful for homeschooling today - learning everyday.

"Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus..."

just to take Him at His Word; just to rest upon His promise, and to know, Thus saith the Lord. Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him! How I've proved Him o'er and o'er! Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! O for grace to trust him more! Yes, 'tis sweet to trust in Jesus, just from sin and self to cease; just from Jesus simply taking life and rest, and joy and peace. I'm so glad I learned to trust Thee, precious Jesus, Savior, Friend; and I know that Thou art with me, wilt be with me to the end." Louisa M. R. Stead, c. 1850-1917

Wikipedia says :Trust is a relationship of reliance. A trusted party is presumed to seek to fulfill policies, ethical codes, law and their previous promises. Trust does not need to involve belief in the good character, vices, or morals of the other party. Persons engaged in a criminal activity usually trust each other to some extent... Trust is a statement about what is otherwise unknown --

Can you imagine life without a relationship of reliance? I certainly can't.

In these uncertain times of national and international uncertainties to think about what trust means - I am so glad I can sing that hymn with great confidence in my relationship of reliance upon Jesus!

~ To know that the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords is in control

~ His position is NEVER up for a vote

~ He holds the future of my life and the family and friends I hold dear

~ He cares about all the details of my life

~ He will NEVER leave me or forsake me

~ He loves the WORLD!

My trust in Him is KNOWN by His character because He fulfills His Promises... His Word is our reliance.

Joy... FIND IT!

Since my middle name is JOY - oh I wish that my face overflowed with it at all times.
This AM I look in the mirror - the lines seem to be taking over. Are they looking like frown lines - a clown... going down? Where are the upwards ones that show I really do smile? And I even got "Best Smile" my sophmore year in high school.

Ps. 16:11 You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.

Over the years it seems like JOY must come from deeper places inside that are hard to find on some long days. As years go by so quickly the days seem so long...

I Thess. 2: 19 & 20 For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy.

I WILL find that joy in the Presence of Almighty Father! He is my JOY! Oh for the day when my face won't reflect the lines... just God's shining presence!

What's in your suitcase?

One of my own favorite analogies as our older 2 have left home & in helping others manage through that stage of life:
We all have luggage we head out the door with as we leave home & set out on our own journey. (Some call it baggage, but at 47 that description doesn't make me want to pick it up!) We give our children a piece with a lot that is hanging out the seams and Boy! I sure hope my young adult children have rollers on those big ones! They'll choose to throw some of it away. They'll keep some of it. They'll pick up new things of their own to fill their carry-on - making sure it fits in the compartments on each part of the trip is always the trouble there. They have a backpack that is filled w/ genes. (A God designed and put-together piece - totally out of our control.) So they have their armload of duffles, totes, and garment bags - that will help and hinder them live on this road. What was your luggage like when you left home? And now - in my case almost 30 years later - how has that luggage changed? Now what is the 1 thing I want with me every step down that path and how can I make sure that 1 thing is what my children take with them as they walk out the door? GOD and His revealed Word! How can we live without IT?!?! CJT 2006

Dreams... musts...time

Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore stand in awe of God. Ecclesiastes 5:7

Today - words seem very meaningless. My dreams are pouring.

I want to do this ________ and I wish I had time to do _________ and I should do _________... As I did our company's books, baked, laundry, still need to vacuum, fold clothes, mop floors, and dust - how I can find time to stand and worship my mighty God!?!

So little time... much time slipping away... and I just want to take a nap! My husband talks often of time being our biggest asset. Rick Warren writes "you only have a set amount of it. You can make more money but you can't make more time. When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you'll never get back. Your time is your life."

Father -- increase my time today. Let me give Your gift of life & time away to those I love with a cheerful heart. Let me love 'in time!' Let me sing Your faithfulness and love as I desire to worship You with all that I do....