Words not needed; Hannah's pictures

Choose Life

This has been on my heart for several days now. After it was brought to my attention "again" I decided to post about it. I have a friend who sends me the most awesome e-mails. She has a knack of sending "new" ones (further defined as emails I have not seen). I love it.

The last one I received in part said this: Three things in life that can destroy a person -

1. Anger

2. Pride

3. Unforgiveness

Now I have definitely been angry. I believe according to the Bible we can be angry and not sin. (Ephesians 4:26-27) "In your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. (NIV) Now I don't believe every time I get angry I can categorize it under this heading. I most definitely can be angry and sin.

I do battle with pride at times, but the one that really stood out to me was unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is like a canker sore; it spreads and spreads, eats and eats, and hurts and hurts. It not only hurts the one with unforgiveness, but those around them also. I have battled with this in the past; I hate it. I hate the way it imprisons me and makes me focus on myself. I hate the way it steals my joy and dampens my relationship with the Lord. I hate what it does to my family and friends. I hate what it does to me.

It's a choice. I can choose not to forgive and harm myself and others. I can choose to forgive and have life. God puts it this way in Deuteronomy 30:19 I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. (The Message) Proverbs 18:21 Words kill, words give life; they're either poison or fruit - you choose. (The Message)

God wants me to make the right choice; He wants me to choose to forgive. Matthew 7:12 should help me do this. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (The Message) I definitely don't want to be judged the way I have judged others in the past. Psalm 51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. (NIV)

If we want to have life we simply must choose to forgive. It's hard. It can seem unfair, especially if we've have been harmed wrongfully. Life happens; hurts happen. Deal with it and get on with life!

A million reasons

Did you read about the guy who tried to open an account in a bank by depositing a fake $1,000,000 bill? After the bank teller wouldn't comply he started to curse at the bank workers so they called the police. He was charged with disorderly conduct and two counts of forgery. The second count came after investigators learned that earlier he had bought several cartons of cigarettes from a nearby grocery store with a stolen check. Stolen checks and counterfeit bills; this guy was on a roll. There was a slight problem however.......

The federal government has never printed a million-dollar bill.

I think if I was going to go to all the trouble to make fake money I would make something in circulation. But then again that's just me!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21999010/gt1/10547/

At least I got a good laugh today.

Can it really be???

Happy 15th Birthday, Hannah! I love you.................

A walk of faith

Pastor Paul's message yesterday was great. To sum it up he said, "God simply wants us to Trust Him, Believe Him, Worship Him, Have a Relationship with Him." One thing I appreciate about Pastor Paul is that he makes it simple. I also appreciate how he shares his struggles with us and his victories. One of his quotes is, "Dream Big Dreams, Ask Big Things."


Think about God as "I AM." Our pastor is right; we need that revelation. Exodus 3:14 (God's Word) God answered Moses, "I Am Who I Am. This is what you must say to the people of Israel: 'I Am has sent me to you.'"


"I AM" really needs no explanation. He is!


Here are some points he made yesterday. He paralleled each of these to an event in the Bible.
While taking notes, I personalized it for myself.


(1) Do everything God tells me. - Noah and the ark

(2) The Lord will fight for me. - Moses and the Red Sea

(3) God will provide for me. - Moses and the desert


(4) Don't go without the presence of God. - Moses


(5) Don't be afraid, those who are with me are more than those who are against me. - Elisha and
the army


(6) The Lord is with me. - Gideon and the Midianites

(7) God is able to save me - Fiery Furnace

(8) I serve the Living God; His kingdom will never be destroyed. - Daniel and the lions den

He also talked about "your Goliath" and how a situation can seem insurmountable and words can cause us to fear. On the upside he reminded us that (a) our abilities are not a factor (b) don't fear the size of the problem (c) recognize who the enemy is coming against, and (d) stay faith positive. As usual I have an opportunity to see if I really believe God or if I am going to look at a particular situation and my feelings. Isn't it encouraging how God sometimes gives us the answer before we run head on into something? Now I have a choice: am I going to believe my feelings and emotions and past experience in this situation or am I going to believe God has a way of escape? It's definitely going to be a struggle today to keep focused on the positive, but it is possible because......

You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)

Christmas and Movies

Thanksgiving is over and the Christmas Season has officially begun at our house. We even have newly purchased packages of Christmas lights waiting to be put on our house. While putting up our tree Thanksgiving night we found that almost every string of lights for our tree wasn't working properly. Donald said "trash em" and Ben and Hannah made a Wal-Mart run.

Donald helped me in the kitchen while I finished cooking our Thanksgiving meal. I figure he shaved 1 1/2 to 2 hours off the preparation time. He opened cans, washed dishes, emptied the contents of cans, washed dishes, stirred things, washed dishes, got things I needed thus saving me many trips to the pantry, washed dishes; did I mention that he washed a few dishes??? I really appreciated his help and enjoyed cooking with him. The dressing was especially good; he determined it to be because of the great stirring he administered while mixing the ingredients.

I really have the Christmas spirit. I've decided it's because I've already started shopping and have several gifts underneath the tree. Seriously though I am so far ahead of myself this year. Usually about the middle of December I realize I need to start thinking about it. Maybe it's because I live life so much differently now that I used to. I used to have to be prepared and plan forever before anything. There's much less stress this way. Or maybe it's just combined into one frantic frenzy instead of spilled out over many days. I prefer it this way.



I have been singing "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas".......and am thinking about Christmas Vacation. I love that movie~! Chevy Chase is great as Clark Griswold. Maybe it's because of family holidays we've experienced that I love this so much. I can just relate to the whole scenario. I hope a squirrel doesn't fly out of our artificial tree and I'm holding my breath that the cat doesn't get inside and get fried underneath a chair. I think the reason I love it so much is because it makes me laugh every time I see it!



We always watch a Christmas movie Thanksgiving night. We only have Miracle on 34th
Street on VHS and last year the sound was really bad. You can't buy it in town or at least the kids couldn't find it. So I've ordered it online and hopefully it will be here soon. We opted for While You Were Sleeping and decided to add it to our list of have to watch movies at Christmas. It's a Wonderful Life and White Christmas have to be viewed also.



I've been thinking about making Caramel Popcorn. That sounds pretty good right about now. We had chicken, onion, sweet pepper, mozzarella, and cheddar cheese fajitas for lunch. It's about time for dessert. Guess I'll go pour some popcorn in the hot air popper and go from there. Either way you can't miss with popcorn.

Here I Sit

I should be cooking for Thanksgiving, but here I sit. I have so much to do today. I worked so hard yesterday to get schoolwork caught up for our break. That means I pushed the kids to get everything caught up so I'd be caught up. I did the ironing also. I want to enjoy our break; after I get all the cooking done. Today I'm so tired all I want to do is nothing~!

Our family loves Thanksgiving, yet we don't always have the traditional turkey. We prefer brisket, but since a grocery store had buy a spiral ham and get a free turkey we are having turkey tomorrow. (If I ever get it in the oven to cook that is~!) We will probably eat the ham and I'll use the turkey for turkey salad sandwiches. I'll just substitute the turkey for chicken and add lots of mayonnaise and pickles and my family will go for it. Last year I let everyone choose one thing they wanted me to fix and that's what we had for our meal. It doesn't matter whether it goes with anything else or not.

This is our menu for tomorrow along with who wanted what: Donald wants dressing and angel eggs (when our kids were little I called "deviled" eggs angel eggs). I guess he gets to choose two things since he's.......well, Donald. Rebekah wants homemade rolls. Bethany wants, as usual, broccoli casserole. Benjamin wants fresh green beans stir fried with olive oil, garlic, lemon pepper, etc. Daniel couldn't come up with anything that he wanted that hasn't been mentioned so I'm going to make him a chess pie. Hannah wants fruit salad and whipped cream (not cool whip) like my mom makes. We all agreed on mashed potatoes because I'm making egg gravy. I don't call it giblet gravy because I only put boiled eggs in it; not whole mind you, chopped boiled eggs. Since I only have one small oven holidays can be a challenge if I don't think ahead and plan on when to bake what. What do I want? Someone to clean up after we've eaten.

The kids usually watch the Thanksgiving Day parade while I cook. Later will be football for Donald. Then tomorrow night we'll put up the Christmas tree and exclaim over each other's decorations while we listen to Christmas music. After we're finished with the tree we turn off all the lights and ooh and aah a few times. We are always quite smug and satisfied after the tree is up and decorated. Then there's the Christmas movie to watch along with Chex Mix and egg nog or apple cider. Somewhere along the way we'll raid the refrigerator and have leftovers. This is our holiday tradition. It's great~!

I really do need to get busy. I have to go to the store again today, because Walmart was out of white cornbread mix and their bananas were really nice and green yesterday. My planning ahead always means another trip to the store.

We are so blessed. Happy Thanksgiving everyone~!