Terrific Tuesday

Well, Tuesday nights is our usual bible study fellowship night, but we decided to combine it with a New Year's Eve party this year, so we moved it to Thursday night this week. Thought that would give me a night off of major cooking, but then Shelby called inviting her and the family to come eat with us. LOL That's okay - that just meant I got time with the grand younguns! Super fun time!

The Lord never ceases to amaze me. The work I do from home gets pretty slim through the holidays and for the past several days I have had no work at all to do. I was stressing about how pitiful my check was going to be and so after logging in this morning and getting the "no jobs available" message, I was a little frantic and threw up a short prayer that went something like, "God, I NEED work!" and then decided to reply to some emails. About 30 minutes later, I decided to check for work again and one came to my queue! I was elated, so I typed it, then got another one, and then another. I was afraid to take a break in case the work would run out. LOL I had a goal of 1000 lines today and after 5 hours of typing I had reached 972 lines and THEN I got the message, "no jobs available." God has a sense of humor, doesn't He? I was so very thankful for the work today. Of course, coming off of a week of severe back pain, all that sitting did not do me much good in that department, but the song in my heart knowing that God heard my cry for work and answered me so quickly made the back pain much more tolerable. So much so that I am asking God for the same miracle tomorrow and Thursday, which is the last day of the pay period.

We really do serve an awesome God and even if He hadn't chosen to answer my prayer and send work my way (and that has happened a lot too), He is still worthy of my praise and adoration. It is not because of what He does that makes me want to serve Him, but it is because of Who He Is!

The year 2009 has been a very difficult one for us financially and honestly, from my perspective, no change seems evident on the horizon of 2010, but you know what, whether or not we find financial stability again or not, I serve a God who is stable and who will never fail me and I am humbled to know He loves me enough to die for me and cover all my sins with his shed blood. Truly now, THAT is an amazing God!

Prepping for the week ahead

It is Sunday night and my house is all quiet. Lindsay is spending the night with her sister at my parents' house and Jalen is in bed with his Papa. Not so sure that is the best idea since Papa Bear is sick, but I guess he has been exposed already so we'll see what happens. 

My mind has been on the coming new year a lot. I guess it is the "season"  to do some serious thinking about one's life and one's goals, but in reality, we can set goals for our life anytime we desire to do so. So, when February rolls around and you find yourself already behind in your "goals", you can just take a deep breath and remind yourself that a goal can be set anytime and you can always start fresh anytime.

My goals tend to be the same each year with only a small percentage gained on most of them. As we close out 2009 and look towards 2010, I do realize that there is one area of my life that I have improved upon a lot and that is my spiritual life. Now before you start thinking I am bragging or puffing myself up higher than I ought to, I will also say that no matter how far I have come I still have a very long ways to go and I am very well aware of that fact. However, it is nice to be able to look back and see where you once were and see that you are no longer there, but have in fact moved ahead a bit. It is encouraging to see growth in our lives and it also helps keep us motivated to continue growing.

As I ponder on these thoughts, my hope for the last few days of 2009, is that I can work on getting better organized and setting up a plan to maintain that for the year 2010. For those who think organizing is unnecessary, let me just say that if you want to be an effective person, you have to be organized. No, you don't have to be OCD about it, but general organization is critical to being successful in any area of our lives. It is what I will be working on in the coming year because there are many things I long to be effective in this next year.

So, as I finish up this blog entry, the last Sunday of 2009, I just want to remind you to look back at where you were and see where you are today and use that to motivate you to keep on keeping on.

The Day After

Well, here we are, the day after Christmas. We survived it. This year for us was quite a bit different than usual. For one thing, our youngest daughter, who got married in September, was missing from our typical Christmas morning chaos. Secondly, due to financial hardships encountered this year, there simply was not much funds available for much gifting to be done. Despite the differences, I believe we had a very nice Christmas. Everyone in our family was well and together for the day. And really, isn't that what Christmas should be about the most - sharing and spending time with family?

Now as we get ready to begin a new year and a new decade, my thoughts turn towards what kind of goals I want to set. Every year I set goals and try to achieve them, but most years I fail to accomplish anything. In 2010 I hope to break that trend. I have learned a lot this year through various trials I have encountered that goals can be accomplished as long as one sets their minds/hearts on it and never quits. So maybe for me, the question becomes what "goal" (singular) can I set for myself this year that I can devote my energy to and see accomplished this year?

I know I have stated it often before, but I truly hope to start blogging again on a regular basis. It is a good way to share what is on my heart and in doing so, I think it helps me become a stronger person eventually.

So, Merry Christmas to my blog readers and have a wonderful NEW YEAR!