A Week Gone Already?!?!?!

Well, despite my goal of blogging more, I have managed to let a week get by me. Life is never dull around my home and there is always something to get in the way of my best intentions. Right now the heat we are experiencing is unreal and the best place to be is under an A/C vent. I am very thankful for our central air in our home and for the unit in my office, though I am not a fan of the electric bill that comes with it. LOL I just keep reminding myself that in January I will be wishing for this heat. :)

The past few days I have been trying to work on an area in my life that I know God wants me to work on. It is found in the book of James.

James 1:19-25 (Contemporary English Version)



Hearing and Obeying

19My dear friends, you should be quick to listen and slow to speak or to get angry. 20If you are angry, you cannot do any of the good things that God wants done. 21You must stop doing anything immoral or evil. Instead be humble and accept the message that is planted in you to save you.

22Obey God's message! Don't fool yourselves by just listening to it. 23If you hear the message and don't obey it, you are like people who stare at themselves in a mirror 24and forget what they look like as soon as they leave. 25But you must never stop looking at the perfect law that sets you free. God will bless you in everything you do, if you listen and obey, and don't just hear and forget.

Sounds simple enough, doesn't it? But I find myself really struggling with all of it. I am not very slow at getting angry or speaking and I don't even think I am that great of a listener. But because this is on my mind so much I know it is an area God is really asking me to improve on. How can I expect my children to be obedient or submissive to authority if I am not setting the example? I am confident though that if I seek with my whole heart to apply these Scriptures to my life that God will be faithful and give me the grace (power and will to do) to be victorious in this area.

Life At Warp Speed

Wow! These last 2 days have been crazy! Our oldest daughter who just recently graduated from nursing school and landed a full-time job purchased her first "new to her" car yesterday. It is a beautiful new car and we are so happy that she finally has a "nice" car. She has literally worn out her other car, but PTL it got her through college!

She actually lives almost 2 hours away from us and due to some miscommunication, I ended up driving her younger sister up there thinking that the plan was for us to spend the night there. That didn't work out so we drove back home after a very hurried shopping time and then discovered that the title to the "old" car was needed by our daughter so back we went early this morning. I did get to take advantage of the 20% off sale that Mardel's was having on homeschool materials before we had to hurry back home though.

Before leaving this morning, I took a minute to pull out a devotional book and read what was for today's date. The title was "One Day at a Time". Felt appropriate to me. The scripture was from 2 Samuel 22:3 and it says: "My God, my Rock, in Him will I take refuge; my Shield and the Horn of my salvation; my Stronghold and my Refuge, my Savior--You save me from violence.

Life feels like it comes at me most of the time at warp speed, but I love how God never fails to show me that no matter what comes my way or how fast it comes at me, He is the one who shields me and protects me and I can always find a refuge in Him.

New Directions (And NO this is not a post about the show Glee!)

For so long now I have dreamed of being a "blogger". I have made several attempts at it but for a variety of reasons I just haven't ever achieved it. I do think about it a lot and many times ideas will flood my mind that I think would make good blog entries, but again, I just never get it to the actual blog.

Then I thought if I had a fabulously designed blog like so many others that I see, maybe that would inspire me to be the "blogger" of my dreams. But truthfully, I know that even if that were to happen, it would not automatically make me a blogger.

Maybe I am being simplistic, but I have decided that blogging for me is going to have to be done like eating an elephant - one bite at a time. Too often, in almost every area of my life, I can dream big and I can even attain all the knowledge to make the dream reality, but in the end if I don't actually "do" it, all I am left with is unrealized dreams.

So, my new goal is to just simply blog about whatever is on my mind, however short it may be, daily. Perhaps as time goes on and I maintain faithfulness in sharing daily, one day I may wake up and realize I have reached my goal of being a real "blogger".