From My Heart...

My husband and I choose to live a very simple life. In our minds we do not have a lot of worldly, material things our vehicles are not brand new and our house is very average, our kids do not have all of the latest and greatest toys, our clothes are not name brand and we are not wealthy according to the world's standards but we are happy and consider ourselves extremely blessed; we do not go to bed hungry at night and there are not holes in the floor of our house, our vehicles are nice and they get us from here to there, our kids have more toys than I would like for them to have, our closets are full of clothes and our bills always get paid. We pray and we laugh and we love unconditionally and we forgive, we give what we can when we can and sometimes even when we can't we still give. Some people look at the way we choose to live and question it. Some people wonder why I want to be a stay at home mom, why don't I go get a job and help provide for my family, why don't w...

This morning my 5 year old son got up, was almost ready to go to school and he started throwing up. So back to bed he went. Every morning before our kids leave for school we circle up, hold hands and say a prayer to start our day, so this morning we prayed in his room so that he could still be included and we also said a prayer asking for him to feel better. After my husband and daughter left I passed by my sons room and could hear him talking so I paused to see if he was calling me but before I could ask him what he needed I realized it wasn't me he was calling on, it was God! He was not asking God to make himself feel better but he was asking God to keep his best friend/cousin from getting sick because they were together yesterday at school. His prayer continued by praying that his aunt and uncle and other cousin would not get sick either because they were all around each other. As tears began to well up in my eyes (I must stop for a minute and say I had tea...

When I was reading through the book of Isaiah I got to chapter 53 and I had to stop and read it again then I looked it up in The Message translation and it was even more amazing. This was several weeks ago that I came across it but today, on Good Friday, as Easter is approaching I find myself once again turning to this passage. When the book of Isaiah was written Jesus Christ had not been sent down to earth but His coming birth and His death are foretold in this book. I want to share this chapter with you today as a reminder of what this weekend is ultimately about. Yes our families get together and celebrate and the kids have an Easter egg hunt but greater than all that is the fact that Jesus was crucified and rose again all for us, no other reason, just for you and me and just because God loves us that much!!! I don't know about you but that gives me chills!!! Thank you Father God for sending your son, Jesus, to die blamelessly for my sins! Thank you for the love and grace and ...

Everyone is busy! Everyone has someone or something pulling them one way or the other! We cannot do everything or be everywhere! This is a hard concept for many of us to understand, myself included. I want to do everything and be everywhere but it is absolutely not possible to do! In my perfect world I am always on time, I never have to say no, my house is always spotless and my laundry is always washed, folded, put up and never piled up!!! My world is not perfect, in fact it is FAR from it!! I have a tendency to let the things on my to-do list get the best of me, I start to feel guilty because my laundry isn't done or I missed someones birthday or, or, or... I get caught up in all the busyness and I forget about God! He is the one person or thing that isn't pulling me in all different directions, yes He is there watching, protecting and guiding but He is also waiting, waiting on me to recognize His presence in all of the busyness, and ironically He is t...

I ran into an old friend from school this past weekend. We talked briefly and then went on our way. This was someone that I spent lots of time with during my Jr. High and High school years. We cheered together, played basketball together, went to track meets together, passed notes in class and laughed together, a lot, I looked up to her during school and I always thought that she had her life in order. After we talked for a few minutes and then parted ways a thought popped into my head...remember when you would get the new yearbooks in and everyone would pass them around to let everyone sign it, almost everyone ended their wishes with "stay cool" or "never change". This memory got me to thinking... I started to think back to when I was in school and the kind of person I was and then I started thinking about my friends writing that to each other. Was it something we just wrote because it sounded good or was it that we really thought that per...

For the past seven weeks I have been doing Beth Moore's Bible Study about the book of James. I have done several Bible studies in the past and each of them opened my eyes to something new but this time not only were my eyes opened wide but my whole world was shaken and laid broken around me. I feel as if I have been made new again!! I do not like to sugar coat things when I am talking to others and I also do not like things sugar coated when they are spoken to me. Well James was not one to sugar coat by any means (my kind of guy) and often times I found myself looking down at my toes to make sure they were still there!! I even wondered at one point in the lessons if God had told Beth about me!? I'm telling y'all this Bible study, for me, was life changing!!! A few things that really spoke to me were CHALLENGE = CHANGE, Satan wants my faith and Keep looking for 1 small rain cloud because the rains will come!!! ...

Today marks the seven year anniversary of the day my grandmother went to meet Jesus. She was known as Mom to all of us, and she and my grandfather, Pa, left behind a beautiful legacy. On February 13, 2005 I got a call from my grandfather. He had taken my grandmother to the hospital and said that we all needed to come quickly. I called my parents and we all went. When we got there the doctors told us that her cancer was back and she might live 3 days but they really didn't expect her to make it through the night. For the next nine days I spent every day getting up early and taking my mom to the hospital and coming home late at night. During these nine days I learned some things that are very precious to me now. At some point during those nine days my grandfather told me that they would have been married for 55 years in just a few more months. I watched him love on my grandmother's almost lifeless body and realized that even after 55 years of life togethe...