thankful for friends and family

i'm really blessed to know people that love, bless, encourage and hold on to hope and faith for their lives and for me and my family.
bless them papagod, and help me to be there and love them like i desire to, and you need me to..

hoping for the happiest of thanksgiving!

my thanksgiving countdown of who and what i'm thankful for~

god is my portion.. jesus is salvation to me and so much more~

the holy spirit reveals and restores and fills me every day.. my companion~

i'm thankful for my heavenly trinity that truly loves me, no matter what!

my thanksgiving countdown of who and what i'm thankful for~

i love my familia!!!!!!!! oh yeah!!!!!!!! thank you papagod for my family!

the incredibles!!!! chris, lauren, christopher and jaxon... :-)

i am a blessed momma!!

bookworms?!

my dear friend, amy, just tagged me!! woohoo!!

hope you join in on this different and neat opportunity to see what your friends are reading, and what the happenstance page will say! mine was out of the love dare book..

"defending your rights and opinions is a foundational part of your nature and make-up. it's detrimental, though, inside a marriage relationship, and it steals away time and productivity. it can also cause great frustration for both of you. "

(this love dare on pg 56 was: love lets the other win/do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. -philippians 2:4)

The rules for this award:

Pass this on to 5 blogging friends.

Open the closest book to you, not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment, to page 56.

Write the 5th sentence, as well as two to five sentences following that.

hope your friday is blessed with joy, peace and rest..

here's the folks that get the tag from me:

eva: http://closer-than-your-heartbeat.blogspot.com/

cousin ryan: http://getinthenet.blogspot.com/

debs: http://lifenchaos.blogspot.com/

pati: http://patipakulis.blogspot.com/

noelle: http://noellemonteith.blogspot.com/

amy joy!

my friend amy... i met her on-line through a christian songwriters contest and then LIVE this summer, with my family!! her kids and hubby are so neat! really precious to me, because they are serving christ and seeking him daily.. she inspires me and brings me hope! blesses me...

she loves her god, her family, her friends.. she is real and gives love to so many.. i've known her a little over a year now, and am so looking forward to many years of friendship with her and her family~ so grateful that we met!

amy has a birthday today! she is my special dear friend, and i want to honor her today with a birthday song!!



love you amy! you send joy to my life... you have an amazing papa!!! ;-) thank you for our friendship!


so HAPPY you were born today!! love ya!!!!

soul thinking

i receive devotionals from alicia's website, and this one was truly a blessing.. thought i'd share~ ;-)

I wouldn't have written it this way

from alicia's book, Sitting in God's Sunshine

I wouldn't have written the script of my life this way Father God.
What would you have changed Child?

I would have deleted unnecessary pain.
What kind of pain is that?

Senseless misunderstandings, incurable illnesses, and undeserved injustice. These produce nothing but tears in my heart and aches in my soul. I could have done without them Father.

I too could have done without sin's shadows and pain's piercings. But because of choices made long ago and choices re-made every moment I myself had a choice to make: turn my back on sin's shadows or personally embrace pain's piercings.

What did You choose Father?
I chose the path of what you call unnecessary pain.

Why? How?
Actually, You helped me. Before you were born Child, I saw you and My love for you was greater than Life. Through sweat and blood I measured my love for you and its passion fixed My Life willingly to a cross. By embracing pain, I robbed sin of its power to crush you.

Then the shadows will not destroy me! But there are still tears in my heart and aches in my soul.
Yes Child. In Mine as well. But even there you can find a treasure if you allow the tears in your heart and aches in your soul to grow dependence upon Me in your spirit.

Reflection Questions

This tender dialogue between Father and Child reflects on soul-bruises. If we think of our lives as a movie, all of us have scenes we wish could have been deleted or edited. These are the bruising memories that cause us to wince, to ache, to question, to move faster. Consider the following thoughts as you reflect on this week's devotion.

One ~ In your memories of the more painful moments of your life, where is God? Do you picture Him watching? Sleeping? Helping? Absent? Protecting? Distracted? Critiquing? Where is Father God in your painful memories? Take a few moments to consider the truth that God was and is as near to you as a mother is to the child in her womb.

Two ~ In this story, the Father speaks of how His love for Child fastened His life to the cross. As a child, my daddy would ask me, "Do you know how much I love you?" Then he would stretch out his arms as far as he could and say, this much.
Ask God how much He loves you. Hear Him whisper, "This much child," as he stretches His arms out wide, upon the cross. Know that His intense love for you strengthened Him to endure pain so that you could embrace freedom: For God so loved the world, that He gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. John 3.16

Three ~ I call dependence a 'treasure.' How can dependence be valuable when we live in a culture that applauds independence? Choosing to be dependant upon God is not a vote for passivity or weakness. Choosing to be dependant upon God is a vote for active reliance by dependence we intentionally immerse ourselves in God's strength.
Remind yourself often in the coming days that even in pain you can find treasures if you avoid the path of bitterness and choose the path of dependence.

http://www.truthportraits.com/
© alicia britt chole ~ onewholeworld, inc. ~

love dare

we are all 4 learning about love.. the love dare!

i bought the book a few months ago.. left it sitting there, glancing at the words on some of the pages. challenged, and fully charged, i dated the first dare, so i could look back years from now (ha!) and remember when.. ;-) but, instead of going on with each 'dare', i thought it would be really cool and a blessing to share with laur and bud and chris! (adapting it slightly with the kids/and having the marriage part for chris and i) so we started last week.

first dare: LOVE IS PATIENT

here are some really neat lines we liked and boy! are we submitting to papa to help us all!!!!!

and to allow his holy spirit to guide us and to change our way of thinking, even, when we start serving out cold love to each other, and to strangers, and friends/family.. and to Him....

we are born with a lifelong thirst for love.

love changes our motivation for living.

love is built on 2 pillars that best define what it is.

those pillars are patience and kindness.

patience brings an internal calm during an external storm.

patience is where love meets wisdom.

patience helps you give your spouse/friend,etc.. permission to be human.

it gives you the ability to hold on during the tough times in your relationship rather than bailing out under the pressure.

what would the tone and volume of your home be like if you tried this biblical approach: "see that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another" (1 thessalonians 5:15)

http://thelovedarebook.com/

father.. thank you for filling our hearts with your love, and we seek you, you alone! lead us, lead our families to love each other, so that people will know you!

i want to speak these words you spoke, today, for us, that we may be transformed and washed by your holy words and that you, jesus, will lead us to love.. no matter what! "Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other." (John 13:34-35 (The Message)

i love you lord~