God's Favor

It's always amazing to watch God move in our lives, and WOW, He has been MOVING since the last time I posted here.

We moved to a new home a couple of days after Christmas. The events that led up to that move showed us that God truly have us in a place of favor right now. We had no intention of moving but knew that God wanted us to relocate.

Everything fell into place just perfectly (with only a 3 week window of time to move and all the family sick with the flu besides me!)

We are now settling in and loving our new home. We have much more space and are so blessed that we will not be able to host guests more often and share Christ's love with them. This home is certainly not just a place for us, but a place to share!

Lots more wonderful things have been happening lately, but instead of listing them all, I'll share the best one. We are expecting!

Yes, our family is about to grow once again and in September we will have a new little one to share our lives. God is so good and we are so very blessed.

Hoping to blog more in the days and weeks to come to chronicle our journey as our new little one grows and arrives into the world.

Praising God

Our 5 year old daughter was baptized this past Sunday. It was such a blessing, our children's pastor and my husband baptized her and it is just beautiful to see the happiness and love of the Lord in her shining eyes. God is so good! She has such a deep love for Christ. Her faith is so strong for one so young.

We also had a birthday party for our 8 year old this week. Her first party just for her :) She and her sisters and friends has a wonderful time.

To finish off the week, I caught a cold that the girls and my husband has last week. They have blessed me so much by taking care of everything around the house and allowing me to rest up. I feel much better tonight. About to go to bed and get a little more rest.

I'm Still Here :0)

I have been in a blogging rut for a while now, hence the lack of posts. I thought I should at least poke my head in and let any readers I still have know that I am still alive, LOL! :0)

We have had a A LOT going on since the year began. Praise God all of it is good and He has been blessing us beyond measure.

We have a new church home. Actually, it is our original church home which God has lead us back to after many years. We are very happy to be back there as it has been obvious to us that is where God wants us to be.

Our 5 year old daughter is going to be baptized this Sunday. We are so blessed to see the work that God is doing in her life. She has such a love for Jesus, it is a blessing to see her grow in Him.

My husband and I have become involved in a new on-line business (more on that later on) which has also been a great blessing for us.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been really focusing on our family's health lately. Due to various health conditions, I felt it was time that I really delved back into the world of healthy eating. We are not only aiming for weight loss but for general health and well being.

If you visit me here regularly, you will be seeing a lot more posts related to that topic. I felt that instead of starting a new blog I would keep posting here ... vary the topic as life's seasons change for us. After all, that is what life is all about... God growing us and changing us. :0)

Praise God!

Last night we got home late from a Bible Study at our pastor's home. I was laying down with a headache coming on when our 5 year old came in. She asked me what happens to our bodies when we die, do we turn to dust if we are buried and if we are not buried as well. I told her yes, but if we are Christians our spirits will go to heaven. She then asked me if she was a Christian. I went on to explain to her what it means to be a Christian (she has heard this explanation before but I tried to make it even more simple and on her level). I asked her if she believed that Jesus died for her sins and does she understand what sin is. She answered yes to both questions. I told her that if she prayed to ask Jesus to come into her heart and if she let Him know that she was sorry for her sins and wanted to accept His death for her sins then she would be a Christian. She asked me if I could help her to pray that. I said of course, and I let her in prayer to the Lord.

We are praising God for our baby girls salvation! God's Spirit is at work in our young ones lives and His saving grace is from them just as much as it is for us adults. I pray that God will bless her each and every day as she begins her walk with Christ.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Matthew 19:14

A New Day and an Award!

My sweet husband took the day off work yesterday to take me to the doctor. I wasn't really up to driving and managing the little ones in the waiting room because I was in too much pain. So it was a huge blessing to have him come along with me.

The doctor said that I have a lot of tension in my back and neck muscles which is causing the pain I am experiencing. Tomorrow I have an appointment for a deep tissue massage which I am praying will help me feel much better. So after church it's off to the massage office then home to spend a relaxing evening celebrating Father's Day.

I woke up this morning praising for for this new day. The weather has been BEAUTIFUL here for the last several weeks. Normally at this time of year it is in the 100's already and edging up to the 110's. Not so this year! The girls have been able to go outside often and I am so thankful for that. The summer is not usually the most fun time for outdoor activities where we live.

My sweet husband leaves early for work and he let me sleep in because he knew I wasn't feeling well. I am thankful for that as well because sleep is certainly necessary for good health. I was able to get up and make some bread dough this morning and make the girls breakfast as well. Then my lovely young ladies took over for lunch as I began to braid 7 yo's hair with my heating pad in tow.

I was also so blessed this morning by my sweet sister in Christ, DeNiece. She awarded me with this lovely blog award.

Thanks so much DeNiece, your blog is such a blessing to me and I am honored that you chose me for this award.

As I read on DeNiece's blog, the "rules" for this award are that you list 7 things that you love, link back to the person that gave you the award and pass the award on to 7 other bloggers. So here is my list of what I love and who I would like to bless with this award.

I love...

1. Above all I love God. He is my salvation, my strength, my healer, my provider and my comfort in all things.

2. I love my husband. I am eternally thankful that God has allowed me to share my life with him.

3. I love my children. They are precious little gifts and it is a joy to watch them grow and learn.

4. I love my family and friends. My parents, sister, in-laws, aunts, uncles, cousins, all of my friends etc. I am blessed with a big and loving family and loving friends and for all of them I am thankful.

5. I love it when it rains! Especially in the summer. The fierce thunder and lightning coupled with the cool drizzle of falling rain is God's power incarnate.

6. I love freshly baked bread. Any type, if it's warm from the oven and topped with butter. Mmmm!

7. I love blogging. Getting to know others and being edified by them and encouraging them is such a blessing.

I would like to pass this award on to the following bloggers that have truly blessed me...

1. Bethany at Happy To Be Called "Mommy"

2. Crystal at Homemaking Homesteader

3. Linda at Homeschooling 6

4. Erika at Tummy Treasure

5. Sharon at Keeper of The Home

6. Donetta at A Life Uncommon

7. Dawn from On A Quest For Plain Living

Praying you all have a beautiful and blessed weekend!

We are blessed, we are blessed!

Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."

Lamentations 3:22-24

God is so amazing, he never ceases to put me in awe. I guess that is not surprising, LOL! I just wanted to share about how much God has blessed us as a family as of late.

I mentioned a few weeks ago about how my husband had hurt his leg and was off work for a while. It was only about a week or week and a half that he was off but it took a nice sized bite out of his check. This wasn't really good because we had just bought a vehicle and had that additional payment to make. The loss of pay put us behind on several things and instead of being ahead of the game we were in a position of struggling on figuring out how to balance everything in time.

We had a moment or two of stress, but then just turned it all over to the Lord. He is after all above all, especially our finances. We chose to tithe as always and even chose to stick with eating our new healthier diet instead of cutting our food budget back in order to make ends meet. We feel that after all, if we are not healthy they we can't function properly because then we don't feel well physically.

Now, fast forward a little bit to today. Not only did my husband get the extra days of overtime that he wanted to make a little extra cash to catch everything up, he also found out that he will be receiving a check that we did not even know was coming AND he is getting a bonus check from work! Is the Lord not good? :0) Not only are we back on track, we are ahead and will have extra to add to savings.

Praise God for his provision and His goodness!

Practicing Patience and Realizing Blessings

It's been a long week for us. The last time I posted was when my husband hurt his leg last week. Since then it has lots of errands, several doctors appointments and lots of waiting and wondering. We still don't know when he is going to be able to return to work or if surgery will be necessary. Tomorrow is his final follow up with an orthopedist before deciding which route will be the best to take so that he can be able to return to work. In the meantime, his allotment of off time is slowly dwindling and we are having to really practice our patience.

Even though things have been busy and a little stressful, God really has been showing us how to have more patience. Patience with waiting on the doctors... patience with waiting for healing... patience with each other (as we have been very tired because of long days) and most of all patience with waiting on God's answer to our prayers for healing.

Romans 8:25 says "But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."

Really, our faith is what causes us to be able to have the type of patience that allows us to rest and be peaceful no matter how long we have to wait on God's reply to our prayers.

Today was also a reminder to us of God's tremendous blessings in our lives. We were just talking about how much we take for granted every day. Our family, friends, health, jobs and the like seem as if they have always been there and always will be. But, really, those things are so fragile and are precious blessings, not to be taken for granted. We know that no matter what happens, the Lord will see us through but often times it takes a time like this to remind us of those blessings as well God's great grace and mercy and love and especially His provision for His children.

A Matter of Prespective

God's blessings are so good, I always wake up every morning thinking of how much God has blessed me and my family.

I didn't always think this way. When I was a "baby" Christian, I had just come out of a bad state of depression. The negative thought patterns that had developed in my mind, over the course of many years living a worldly life still continued in some ways even after I gave my life to the Lord. I spent a long time continuing to worry about things and trying to "fix" them myself. However, with God's grace and His word to guide me I am now so aware of every little way He blesses us each day.

Lately I have been reading all the news reports about the economy. We have also been feeling the pinch here at home and watching the struggles that friends and family are enduring because of hard times financially. The funny thing is, despite any struggles we face we feel so amazingly blessed and are happy and joyful every day. In fact, I have honestly never been quite as happy in my life than I am now.

God is just so good and I just felt tonight that I wanted to share my feelings on His blessings. No matter what we may endure, money problems, health concerns, losing a family member, etc, God is bigger than all of those things and can give us joy despite them.

O my soul, thou hast said unto Jehovah, Thou art my Lord: I have no good beyond thee. (Psalm 16:2)

Here's one of my favorite praise songs, I hope you enjoy it too...

A Blessed Mess

Have you ever looked at your house when it was messy and thought of how blessed you are? Normally, that is not my first reaction. But last night it was. We had a very long day, running errands all over town and came home to quite a mess which it was much too late to tackle. I just stood there and thought of how much God has blessed us. The fact that my kids have all these toys that many children only wish they could have... the fact that there were lots and lots of groceries to put away that many families cannot afford... the fact that the laundry was piled up reminded me of all the people who are in need of clothing in the world. I didn't see the mess, I saw the blessings bestowed upon us by a mighty and awesome God!

We spent a lot of time last week organizing things. Bookshelves were sorted and reorganized in anticipation for several packages of brand new books that are due to arrive any day to add to our homeschool library. Closets were sorted and organized in anticipation of an upcoming shopping trip for new winter items, the kitchen was cleaned and organized for yesterday's shopping trip.

This morning the house is still a bit messy and my girls and I are off to clean it right now so we can spend the afternoon learning.

It's easy to feel down when faced with the never ending job of keeping your home in order, but when those kinds of thoughts try to get you down, just remember that all that needs to be cleaned up and kept in order are true blessings from God.

Pray you are having a blessed day!