The most recent development at our home happens to be that we have left the Church closest to us and are now traveling to Naples to be apart of the fellowship there. This was something the Lord had established that we do prior to my visit to Tri-cities, but unfortunately, we delayed. It is hard to leave somewhere you get plugged in, but when God says GO it is best to listen in HIS timing and not our own! Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to Christmas eve service down in Naples, but I guess it was quite a festive event. John heard all about it last Sunday along with getting introduced to many of the folks at the church. He got to go by himself as he was the only one not yet suffering from the sinus headcolds. , In his fellowship time he got some really neat advice from some fellow brothers about being patient for the Lord to reveal his plan. This seemed to be a re-occuring theme for the day for him. Just another way for God to use others to speak to our heart! However, the neatest piece of advice that John came away with was this:
“Many times when we seek to hear the Lord’s plan for our lives, we only do so in an effort to CONSIDER (mull over & count the cost) the Lord’s plan, rather than with an attitude of first time obedience to WHATEVER God has in store.”
In theory, everybody wants to be in God’s will. Everyone wants God’s plan because in the end we understand in our heads that His plans are SO MUCH better than anything we could come up with on our own. That He is God and we are FAR from anything but a pile of filthy rags. Whether your personality is reflective of a ‘Mary’ or a ‘Martha’, we all do this in many ways that we may not realize. Either personality has it’s own demons in the way ‘considering’ plays its role. Marys’ tend to worry and dwell in the What If’s, impossibilities, and how to’s. Marthas get a piece of the puzzle and start plotting & planning for ways that will make things happen. Neither one is abiding, resting or dwelling in the fact that the the Lord has got things under His control. Especially when we have trouble RELINQUISHING the control to the Lord. That in a nutshell is the heart of the matter. Control, whether through worry or self-reliance are both sin and disobedience. Lately we have experienced a period of unanswered prayers in seeking His direction so these are the scriptures He has me meditating on. Trusting, seeking, dwelling, abiding, listening and just plain old sitting at his feet. Knowing full well that He has some amazing plans for us and to continue practicing that list above until He is ready to share, His perfect timing is in place, and WE are ready to receive it. At this point His voice will be unmistakable.
Psalm 37:3-7 3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. 4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: 6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. 7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
John 15:4-5, 7 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will[b] ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
Proverbs 14: 20 Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise. 21 Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.
Psalm 51:1,10 1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. 10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Psalm 139: 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
These are some of the scriptures that are speaking to my heart lately. Making certain that we are ready to obey, rather than just consider His will for our family. Here are some questions posed on a “New Years Devotional” from truth media, that were asked to ponder over as they relate to the past year and looking toward redeeming further growth, in the coming year.
Here are some questions we might ask ourselves:
How real has the Lord Jesus Christ been to me?
Did I seek His will when making decisions?
Was my life a good example for others?
Did I help anyone else come to Christ?
How many prayers did I have answered?
If I could do it over, would I live the same way?
Happy New Year!
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Christmas cooking
I must admit that last Christmas I was a bit of a GRINCH! It was our first year away from our family, traditions, familiar friends & traditional Christmas as we knew it. It didn't feel like Christmas at all! However, this year I wanted to be different. I wanted to choose to live OUTSIDE my feelings of grinch-like tendencies and make a conscious effort to redeem Christmas. One of the ways I accomplish this is by baking. It is one of my true pleasures to bake gifts to give out to neighbors. However, here in Florida you must plot and scheme to do this. You have to make things ahead of time and wait for the weather to co-operate. It seems to be against my nature and logic to turn on the oven for a day filled with baking, on a hot day! If the consequence ends up being that the air conditioner and I BOTH have to work OT in the heat it is a NO THANK YOU! This last weekend there was a "cold front" coming! Highs in only the upper 60's! WOO HOO! God is so good to me! I had all my cookie batters made up ahead of time, and we cooked/baked our little hearts out! Here are my little helpers!
All week long, when the kids would go to bed I would make my candies that just get a bit too hot to have the kids 'help'. I even got to make some new things this year as a result of following some food blogs! At the risk of sounding girly, it feels like Christmas when my kitchen is filled with good things to give out to my neighbors!
Since you are so far away and I can't send many of these things thanks to the Florida heat here is the next best thing. Here are my favorite holiday recipes and some new ones I tried this year! Enjoy.
I use peppermint oil for these rather then the extract! Gives it a bit more punch but only use 1/4 tsp if using oil!This tasts very similar to the See's candy Cappacino sucker! I used instant Starbucks coffee since I couldn't find espresso powder!
Ground up some more yummy candy cane pieces to press into the top of this recipe! This one makes A LOT so I did half it!
Basic Sugar cookies; need some deocrating inspiration? Here is where I got mine! However, when I couldn't get the Royal icing quite right from her site, I was in a pinch for time so here was Icing recipe I switched to! They turned out really pretty and the kids got to help a lot more than the prior method!
Almond Roca Toffee; I like to add almonds to mine!
Candy Cane Chocolate Bark
Will have to give you the recipe on this one as I didn't follow one recipe exactly. Took 2 recipes instead and made this yummy treat!
3 Cups White CHocolate Chips (1 1/2 pkgs)
1 pkg Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips
1 C Milk Chocolate Chips
1o Oreo cookies
Pepermint candies (either candy canes or cheaper to buy the round disk peppermint candy!)
Peppermint oil
1. Line a baking sheet with foil.
2. Prepare the Oreos by scraping off the middle filling and placing cookies in a Food Processor. Process till coarse crumbs. Set aside. *
3. Unwrap the candy, (Approx 15 disks) and place in food processor. Grind up till coarse crumbs. Set aside.*
4. Mix together the dark chocolate chips and melt over a double boiler. Once melted spread evenly on the foil lined cookie sheet.
5. While chocolate is still soft, sprinkle with oreo crumbs. Place a piece of wax paper over crumbs and press crumbs into the chocolate layer. Do not remove wax paper and place cookie sheet in the freezer to harden.
6. While the other layer is cooling, melt white chocolate chips in a double boiler till smooth & creamy. Add peppermint oil (couple drops) and mix till well combined.
7. Take the cookie sheet out of the freezer and remove the wax paper; set aside wax paper for use later.
8. Drop white chocolate evenly over the cookie sheet & spread carefully over the cookie layer so as to not mix cookies into the white chocolate. Spread fast so that the white chocolate doesn't harden on you. Sprinkle with peppermint candies and then press them into the white chocolate (using wax paper). Place in the refridgerator or freezer till hardened.
9. Break into pieces and enjoy!
Hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New year! If you are tempted to be a scrooge, here are some cute and small reasons to be grateful this Christmas! These little baby skinks were on the side of the road the other day. They were so cute I had to get a couple pictures. The live at a house down the street from us and were on the side of someone's home. I felt compelled to tell the owner of the home what was outside seeing that on her porch she had toddler toys in view! When I told her about the ones we saw she told me that she not only had just those 2 but there are a total of 5 living around her property! Poor lady! BTW, no one was skunked when taking pictures of these cute creatures. Michaela wants to trap them, take them in to get de-skunked and train them to be pets. That is something she IS NOT getting for Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
Friday, December 11, 2009
Christmas picture fun!
Well, got the Christmas cards in the mail the other day! I was lazy used a picture that turned out real well from our visit to Washington this past summer! Gotta love the beautiful mountain backdrop for a nice picture!
However, last year on clearance, I bought Santa hats. I had ANTICIPATING a tad bit of BRAGGING. Yes, I was going to do CUTE Pictures of us in co-ordinating shorts and T's at the beach in santa hats! I suppose God didn't want me to brag since we never really made it to the beach together! SO, when the santa hats were out of the Christmas boxes we headed for the park in whatever we were wearing!
While I didn't get pics done in time for Christmas cards, I really enjoy doing those collage Calendars for those far away family members that have most everything. Since 'winter pictures' are not really possible, we have to create our own kind! Gotta put some kind of winter feel to the pictures for the month of December! Here are the ones that made the cut!
John was not too thrilled with this idea. His face screams TAKE THE PICTURE AND GET THIS OVER WITH! :o)
A Posing picture! Notice the shorts and blue sky!
A candid while playing a little bit of Santa tag!
One of the problems with the bright blue sky was that it was hard to tell if everyone was looking at the camera after the shot! Bummer!
One final jolly pose!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
One way Stomach bug
After my previous post that i may be sharing remedies on my blog my Dad, who gets my posts delivered to his e-mail account made sure to reply; "That's weird!" He would be one of the Nay-sayers I was chatting about! Love ya dad even if you think I am weird! If you don't care about the content of this 'Natural remedy' post in particular please just delete! :o)
Recently my family suffered from a bought of some sort of stomach virus. It effected only 3 out of the 5 of us. There was no vomiting so, without being graphic, this gives you the general idea where the stomach bug was being flushed out (no pun intended)! If the stomach bug would have caused probelms with vomiting AND the later, my treatment would have been different so please keep this under advisement.
For Michaela and I, to avoid getting the bug, we just took the immune boosters listed below under the link for Immune boosters for the whole family! Berry well, Vitamin C (or Emergen-C), Vitamin D, Bee Immune, Colostrum transfer for both of us! This kept she & I from getting the bug!
When the body is trying to expell a virus from the system, in either direction, our initial medical reaction is to stop it immediately with chemicals. I remember when Immodium AD came out in the stores and it was great at stopping the inconvenience ASAP. However, what I later came to understand is that there are much better, more natural ways, to help this process along, without keeping the nasty bugs in your system!
Papaya enzymes (I just buy these at Wal-mart in the vitamin section)
Probiotic
~This one for little kids Rhinophos chewable probiotic
~This one for the older ones, my hubby & myself Beeyoutiful Tummy tune-up or Ultimate defense)
I actually ended up using the Tunny tune-up on Abby as well because the Rhinophos wasn't strong enough for her.
Bentonite clay; read about the benefits of this toxin flusher here. You can usually purchase this at a local health food store or from the website above here.
Vitamin D3 (I just get the huge bottle from Costco 2000 IU)
If you are just getting started with Immune boosters from Beeyoutiful, you can save a bit on this pack for the whole family!
Multi-vitamins for the whole family Men, Women, Kids
Besides pushing a lot of fluids, all of them were complaining of stomach cramps so we gave papya enzymes for this.
The bentonite clay is taken to draw out the toxins (virus) from the gut. You can't use metal spoons while mixing this as the metal does something to the clay, so I use plastic spoons. Keep in mind that the clay DOES taste just like dirt. We mix 1 tsp to a little water and it makes basically a slimey blob that is easily swallowed. The they need to take a full glass of water afterward! If you have a child that has a strong gag reflux you may want to purchase some capsules. My kids are pretty great troopers so they just swallow the blob-o-dirt. You only do this once a day for the duration of the spell plus one extra day.
While the Clay draws out the bad stuff the Probiotics re-innoculate the stomach with the proper/good bacteria. About an hour after the clay I gave a probiotic.
At meal time I give vitamins such as the D3, Colostrum, berrywell, bee immune, along with their normal multi-vitamin .
One bonus about giving kids the liquid vitamin (superkids), immune boosters (berry well)is that it absorbs faster. When you have things coming out as fast as they come in, absorbtion is a big deal!
After doing this stuff yesterday when it all began, everyone was doing much better the next day. Abby and Ben had some residual effects, but it was their body ridding itself of the final bugs and fighting through the infection. I continued the immune boosters, probiotics for a couple days after to keep the body fit to fight off any other bugs they come on contact with!
On a side-note....... If you do not have a good health food store nearby and you want to place an order for Beeyoutiful products AS WELL AS some bulk herbs & spices, the company More than alive does sell both! To keep your shipping rates low this is how I do it.
If you just want to purchase Beeyoutiful products and get it at a discount, beeyoutiful has a supplier that 'sells' the products at a 15% discount and beeyoutiful gives a portion of the proceeds to fund their family mission trip to Kenya. Since I love a good deal AND a GREAT cause I like to order through her when I do not need to include any herbs with my order! To order through her, just email your list of items to sales@valuesdrivenfamily.com. You can order anything from Beeyoutiful.com through her but she only recieves the discounted price from the beeyoutiful products.
Anywho, this is how we took care of the latest stomach bug! Love and hugs to ya all!
Recently my family suffered from a bought of some sort of stomach virus. It effected only 3 out of the 5 of us. There was no vomiting so, without being graphic, this gives you the general idea where the stomach bug was being flushed out (no pun intended)! If the stomach bug would have caused probelms with vomiting AND the later, my treatment would have been different so please keep this under advisement.
For Michaela and I, to avoid getting the bug, we just took the immune boosters listed below under the link for Immune boosters for the whole family! Berry well, Vitamin C (or Emergen-C), Vitamin D, Bee Immune, Colostrum transfer for both of us! This kept she & I from getting the bug!
When the body is trying to expell a virus from the system, in either direction, our initial medical reaction is to stop it immediately with chemicals. I remember when Immodium AD came out in the stores and it was great at stopping the inconvenience ASAP. However, what I later came to understand is that there are much better, more natural ways, to help this process along, without keeping the nasty bugs in your system!
Papaya enzymes (I just buy these at Wal-mart in the vitamin section)
Probiotic
~This one for little kids Rhinophos chewable probiotic
~This one for the older ones, my hubby & myself Beeyoutiful Tummy tune-up or Ultimate defense)
I actually ended up using the Tunny tune-up on Abby as well because the Rhinophos wasn't strong enough for her.
Bentonite clay; read about the benefits of this toxin flusher here. You can usually purchase this at a local health food store or from the website above here.
Vitamin D3 (I just get the huge bottle from Costco 2000 IU)
If you are just getting started with Immune boosters from Beeyoutiful, you can save a bit on this pack for the whole family!
Multi-vitamins for the whole family Men, Women, Kids
Besides pushing a lot of fluids, all of them were complaining of stomach cramps so we gave papya enzymes for this.
The bentonite clay is taken to draw out the toxins (virus) from the gut. You can't use metal spoons while mixing this as the metal does something to the clay, so I use plastic spoons. Keep in mind that the clay DOES taste just like dirt. We mix 1 tsp to a little water and it makes basically a slimey blob that is easily swallowed. The they need to take a full glass of water afterward! If you have a child that has a strong gag reflux you may want to purchase some capsules. My kids are pretty great troopers so they just swallow the blob-o-dirt. You only do this once a day for the duration of the spell plus one extra day.
While the Clay draws out the bad stuff the Probiotics re-innoculate the stomach with the proper/good bacteria. About an hour after the clay I gave a probiotic.
At meal time I give vitamins such as the D3, Colostrum, berrywell, bee immune, along with their normal multi-vitamin .
One bonus about giving kids the liquid vitamin (superkids), immune boosters (berry well)is that it absorbs faster. When you have things coming out as fast as they come in, absorbtion is a big deal!
After doing this stuff yesterday when it all began, everyone was doing much better the next day. Abby and Ben had some residual effects, but it was their body ridding itself of the final bugs and fighting through the infection. I continued the immune boosters, probiotics for a couple days after to keep the body fit to fight off any other bugs they come on contact with!
On a side-note....... If you do not have a good health food store nearby and you want to place an order for Beeyoutiful products AS WELL AS some bulk herbs & spices, the company More than alive does sell both! To keep your shipping rates low this is how I do it.
If you just want to purchase Beeyoutiful products and get it at a discount, beeyoutiful has a supplier that 'sells' the products at a 15% discount and beeyoutiful gives a portion of the proceeds to fund their family mission trip to Kenya. Since I love a good deal AND a GREAT cause I like to order through her when I do not need to include any herbs with my order! To order through her, just email your list of items to sales@valuesdrivenfamily.com. You can order anything from Beeyoutiful.com through her but she only recieves the discounted price from the beeyoutiful products.
Anywho, this is how we took care of the latest stomach bug! Love and hugs to ya all!
Natural remedies/ Disclosure
Once upon a time, just after I met and married my hubby I had the awesome opportunity to work for a Naturopathic midwife. In that one short year of my life, I learned countless ways to combat many illnesses without having to run to urgent care or the family doctor. MOST of my family members enjoy poking fun at me for it........ Usually, they are all rallied about by my misguided hubby. However, since we moved far away from that 'fuel' that kindled his fire, he no longer mocks it anymore and just takes whatever I put in front of him. What I learned and what I continue to learn about are basically using herbs, homeopathic and vitamins to help the body do what God designed it to do.
Illnesses and viruses are usually shorter in duration and frequency at our house for 2 reasons. Preventative measures and boosting immunity. I WISH it had more to do with impeccable hygiene habits but, that would DEFINITELY not be keeping it real!
So I have started a new label under posts called natural remedies. This is in no way, shape, or form, medical advice that takes precedence over a real doctor. If in doubt please seek medical attention but what I am going to do is just post things that we go through, what I did to treat it and how it worked.
It am NOT a 'trained professional'! Just a mom that likes to study about weird stuff and has some information that works for my family! Hope it works for yours too if you choose to use any of them!
Illnesses and viruses are usually shorter in duration and frequency at our house for 2 reasons. Preventative measures and boosting immunity. I WISH it had more to do with impeccable hygiene habits but, that would DEFINITELY not be keeping it real!
So I have started a new label under posts called natural remedies. This is in no way, shape, or form, medical advice that takes precedence over a real doctor. If in doubt please seek medical attention but what I am going to do is just post things that we go through, what I did to treat it and how it worked.
It am NOT a 'trained professional'! Just a mom that likes to study about weird stuff and has some information that works for my family! Hope it works for yours too if you choose to use any of them!
Saturday, December 5, 2009
The hunt continues
As many of you know from reading my last post we have begun house hunting. There in lies the premise for this post.
Just last week we literally stumbled on the ‘perfect house’. It basically had all of our heart’s desires in a home AND then some. It wasn’t in perfect condition, however, with some new paint and TLC it would be ‘perfect’ to suit all of our needs. (It even had one room that had Seattle Seahawk colors on the wall with SEAHAWKS written on the wall; who knew bad taste in football teams traveled THAT far away! YIKES. John shook his head in shame telling me that was the first room to get painted!) LOL! It was built in 2001, so this meant is was new enough to have a lower insurance premium, but not new enough to have the possibility of Chinese drywall! COOL! We had seen another home that was still in the back of our minds as a possibility but it was much older and missing several things things that this home had. Like a bigger yard, fence, pool, quiet street, ect. It seemed as though this one was the whole package and our search was over!
As John and I spent time with the Lord to ask Him if HE concurred with our thoughts neither of us got scripture about it being ‘the house’. John got scripture about going and dwelling in the Land again. Basically I got scriptures stating I needed to have faith. Maybe I am just a bit picky, but I asked the Lord for specifics. I wanted something along the lines of having the subject of a HOUSE in the scripture? Nothing, but we thought maybe John’s scripture was enough and that I just needed to have faith in the fact that God wants us to have this sweet treasure? To be honest, I got discouraged and basically gave up seeking to get confirmation. John felt like he got confirmation on a price/offer so we placed an offer on the home and the seller to pay a 6% concession. There was no peace as a result of that offer on my part because I knew I stopped seeking. I began praying for God to PLEASE protect us if we stepped out on our own and not under His direction. The bank countered our offer with only paying a 3% concession and we knew right away that this was above the offer John had peace with. We pretty much walked away from the offer all together and put it in the Lord’s hands. If we are to have it then God will make it clear to us through more scriptural confirmation AND the bank will accept our previous offer.
All the while God kept bringing to mind another property we had looked at, but fairly quickly dismissed. It was no longer even a caditate for consideration as far as John and I were concerned. However, the realestate agent kept asking our agent if we were still interested? It was owned by a church and they used it as house for recovering addicts and possibly visitors to their church. It was older, not well cared for, smelled of cigarettes, needed A LOT of work, not in the best part of town and NOT even in Lehigh but a little north of it (East Fort Myers to be exact). However, the home was much bigger than the others we had seen for the same price. It could accommodate an extra family and visitors to stay with us. It also had plenty of room for bible studies. So I felt the Lord tugging at my heart asking WHY we are here? Is it to have the nice house, huge yard, pool , in an acceptable part of town? OUCH! I know that we can accomplish both things in either home, but only God knows where we will have the biggest impact and what we will need, long term for what He is calling us to do. Oh, how our ‘hearts desires’ can sometimes be so short sighted looking only to the immediate need/wants rather than the fact that God has a LONG term plan going on. So we are continuing to seek more confirmation from the Lord. I am well aware that we NEVER “surprised God” by making a choice using our moderate understanding of what God thinks is best for us. However it is quite similar to old adage “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade”. However, we are the ones providing the Lemons for GOD to make Lemonade! Settling, not His first and foremost plan for us but He will make due with the effort we have given. Handing God ‘lemons’ and HIM orchestrating all those affected by our mess…….. We never make decisions in a vacuum and there are always casualties of decisions made without Christ. However, God is a God of redemption. It is God’s pleasure to have us submit to Him and give Him ALL our messes repentantly. Repentance is the key to getting our hearts back in line with the Lords desires for us.
I wish I could tell you that we HAVE confirmation on 'the house' God wants us to own, but so far we keep on seeking until our hearts are in line with scripture and attain the peace that only comes from making a decision based on the Lord's will for our lives. If you think about it please pray for us to get that confirmation! Love you all!
Just last week we literally stumbled on the ‘perfect house’. It basically had all of our heart’s desires in a home AND then some. It wasn’t in perfect condition, however, with some new paint and TLC it would be ‘perfect’ to suit all of our needs. (It even had one room that had Seattle Seahawk colors on the wall with SEAHAWKS written on the wall; who knew bad taste in football teams traveled THAT far away! YIKES. John shook his head in shame telling me that was the first room to get painted!) LOL! It was built in 2001, so this meant is was new enough to have a lower insurance premium, but not new enough to have the possibility of Chinese drywall! COOL! We had seen another home that was still in the back of our minds as a possibility but it was much older and missing several things things that this home had. Like a bigger yard, fence, pool, quiet street, ect. It seemed as though this one was the whole package and our search was over!
As John and I spent time with the Lord to ask Him if HE concurred with our thoughts neither of us got scripture about it being ‘the house’. John got scripture about going and dwelling in the Land again. Basically I got scriptures stating I needed to have faith. Maybe I am just a bit picky, but I asked the Lord for specifics. I wanted something along the lines of having the subject of a HOUSE in the scripture? Nothing, but we thought maybe John’s scripture was enough and that I just needed to have faith in the fact that God wants us to have this sweet treasure? To be honest, I got discouraged and basically gave up seeking to get confirmation. John felt like he got confirmation on a price/offer so we placed an offer on the home and the seller to pay a 6% concession. There was no peace as a result of that offer on my part because I knew I stopped seeking. I began praying for God to PLEASE protect us if we stepped out on our own and not under His direction. The bank countered our offer with only paying a 3% concession and we knew right away that this was above the offer John had peace with. We pretty much walked away from the offer all together and put it in the Lord’s hands. If we are to have it then God will make it clear to us through more scriptural confirmation AND the bank will accept our previous offer.
All the while God kept bringing to mind another property we had looked at, but fairly quickly dismissed. It was no longer even a caditate for consideration as far as John and I were concerned. However, the realestate agent kept asking our agent if we were still interested? It was owned by a church and they used it as house for recovering addicts and possibly visitors to their church. It was older, not well cared for, smelled of cigarettes, needed A LOT of work, not in the best part of town and NOT even in Lehigh but a little north of it (East Fort Myers to be exact). However, the home was much bigger than the others we had seen for the same price. It could accommodate an extra family and visitors to stay with us. It also had plenty of room for bible studies. So I felt the Lord tugging at my heart asking WHY we are here? Is it to have the nice house, huge yard, pool , in an acceptable part of town? OUCH! I know that we can accomplish both things in either home, but only God knows where we will have the biggest impact and what we will need, long term for what He is calling us to do. Oh, how our ‘hearts desires’ can sometimes be so short sighted looking only to the immediate need/wants rather than the fact that God has a LONG term plan going on. So we are continuing to seek more confirmation from the Lord. I am well aware that we NEVER “surprised God” by making a choice using our moderate understanding of what God thinks is best for us. However it is quite similar to old adage “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade”. However, we are the ones providing the Lemons for GOD to make Lemonade! Settling, not His first and foremost plan for us but He will make due with the effort we have given. Handing God ‘lemons’ and HIM orchestrating all those affected by our mess…….. We never make decisions in a vacuum and there are always casualties of decisions made without Christ. However, God is a God of redemption. It is God’s pleasure to have us submit to Him and give Him ALL our messes repentantly. Repentance is the key to getting our hearts back in line with the Lords desires for us.
I wish I could tell you that we HAVE confirmation on 'the house' God wants us to own, but so far we keep on seeking until our hearts are in line with scripture and attain the peace that only comes from making a decision based on the Lord's will for our lives. If you think about it please pray for us to get that confirmation! Love you all!
Saturday, November 28, 2009
My Thankful List
Being that quite a few things have transpired since my last post I figured, in order to keep you from snoozing through a post I would keep it short and sweet…….. Never done that before so I suppose we will see how that goes!
1. I am thankful that I have a pretty amazing husband, 3 great kids that the Lord has blessed us with and an extended family that has been grafted into our clan through adoption.
2. I am so thankful for my sustained health and the fact that everyone else in our family is healthy! I have been seizure free for many years now, thanks to the Lord’s sweet provision and the ability to pay for the medication necessary to keep me well!
3. John, not only has a job in this uncertain economy, but it is a job that is truly a gift from God. He has had several opportunities to witness; mostly through acts of kindness, but those are rare between inmate and officer so they speak volumes. It also gives him time/energy to pour more into our family! This is just awesome to see the fruit from this happening as we become more knit together and indivisible for the work that God has called us to!
4. God is providing for us and continues to take care of us above all that we could ask or think!
5. I am so THANKFUL the kids and I got to go home and visit/recharge with my relatives and Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities church family back in August. Also, very grateful for opportunities to eat food (mostly ice cream and ranch dressing) that we can’t find here in Florida.
6. We seem to have some direction about the WHY behind being here in Florida. (To be disclosed when we have more evidence/direction)
7. A family from our church in the Tri-cities will be moving down, possibly within a year, to come alongside us in what the Lord has planned! We are prettyhappy ELATED/AMAZED about this! It will be so wonderful to have fellowship for our family as we encourage each other to follow the path that God has laid out for each of us here!
8. As per the Lord’s direction, we have been house hunting again in an area that is about 45 minutes, yet only 20 miles, SouthEast of our current location. The town we are looking in/ around is called Lehigh acres.
9. The housing market is still pretty affordable here, but prices are slowly rising because investors are saturating the market. It has also been a bit tricky to navigate this market for these reasons:
~Foreclosures that have been ‘invisibly’ or visibly trashed. Some people are so upset they are losing their homes that they pour cement down the drains & toilets to make sure whoever buys the house has to “pay” for taking it away from them. They get back at the bank by selling off all light fixtures, pool equipment, AC/HVAC systems, kitchen cabinets, ect.
~Short sales: a term that basically says “I am trying to avoid foreclosure with my dignity and credit in tact. PLEASE buy my house for less than what I paid for it. However, since I really don’t want to HAVE to sell it to you, don’t expect me to let you see my house or negotiate a price for 1/3 of what I paid.”
~ Chinese drywall, which the government says is perfectly safe to inhale inert Strontium isotopes that stink like rotten eggs? It is in many of the homes on the market but is not disclosed since it is ‘safe’. Many of the homes built between the years of 2004 to 2006 are effected and since this was a time when there was a huge housing boom it is hard to know what is and is not a home with that drywall. It is so sad to see that people had to go into foreclosure on their ‘dream homes’ because they were unlivable. Even if you have one sheet of this stuff in your home it will cause BIG problems. It breaks down appliances, AC units and damages copper wiring within the year. People who have lived in these homes have the same health problems, however, even though the complaints are the same it is unrelated to the drywall? No worries though……. Obama will LOAN you upwards of 100,000 to ‘fix’ your unrepairable home. Many are struggling to afford their mortgages ‘as is’ and are then forced to foreclose. GRRRRR!
With all these obstacles in our path we are SO GRATEFUL we are seeking the Lord for direction. Only He knows what house we should have so when He says NO, it is easy to walk away KNOWING HE has our best interests at heart.
10. Ever since we realized that my seizure disorder would not be able to sustain another pregnancy, I knew that God gave me a hope that we would adopt to complete our family. John half-heartily agreed with this notion because, he saw howupseting devastating it was, for me. To have the desire to physically bear more children, but submitting that desire to the Lord, KNOWING it was time to let my body be done. However, adoption was MY hearts desire, not John's. After 6 years of praying for my husband to let the Lord speak to his heart on this matter, God has come thorugh. WE will be pursuing adoption once we get settled into the home God has for us here in Florida. The kids are VERY excited and pray daily for their new sibling(s) and that God would keep them safe till we meet him/her/them.
11. I am so thankful that the Lord has chosen this time of isolation for our family. Weird I know, but it has caused John & I to take a very good look at the fact that “you are going to get out of your children, exactly what you put into them”. Yes, we homeschool, yes we use Christian curriculum, yes, we talk about what the Lord is doing for us as a family and how He relates to us. However, how much of this is just scratching the surface? How much of this really cultivates a relationship with us AND more importantly, Jesus? Meaning if they only hear about the Lord through quaint little stories at church and via a short devotional in the morning before school, are they really equipped or are they starving spiritually! Since this has been brought to our attention, we have been doing family devotions in the evening. Just going through the word, reading and answering questions. I only wish we had started doing this earlier as it allows them to ask us questions without shame for not knowing. It gives us opportunities to diffuse all the worlds influences that creep to tempt their hearts. A place in our children’s hearts needs to be cultivated more proactively in the world we live in. The bonus is getting to see them grow in the Lord more fervently, turn to Him when they struggle in their sin AND, most importantly, get victory over those areas they give to the Lord.
12. This year we got to have someone over for Thanksgiving that we know from back home! A former co-worker of John’s moved here to Cape Coral about a couple months ago. We have gotten together a couple times to share our ‘confusion’ with the new culture here in Florida and swapping stories from back home. John and she also had a nice time swapping work stories of their time spent at Benton county as well as being so THANKFUL each of them no longer work there.
I know this is longer than I promised so I will stop there! I am thankful for more than just these things but I know you are already probably thinking “I don’t really care whatever else you are thankful for because you are so long winded” and ready to move along to check your Facebook page. Please just don't post a status update of that you now "need a nap because Theresa's blog is so long"! I will still chose to love you even if you do this but I may send you a poopy diaper in the mail. I work in the church nursery! :o) For those of you naysayers like Ryan, I, just want to let you know, there are 3 separate posts I started along these lines and never got finished because they were a bit too long individually. So, in a way this really is LONG STORY SHORT! He He! Hope you all are well and enjoying getting ready for your Christmas celebration! BIG CHRISTMAS HUGS SENT FROM FLORIDA! Especially because I am not sure if we will get Christmas pics out this year! Anyone want to come celebrate Christmas on the beach with us? Just let me know!
1. I am thankful that I have a pretty amazing husband, 3 great kids that the Lord has blessed us with and an extended family that has been grafted into our clan through adoption.
2. I am so thankful for my sustained health and the fact that everyone else in our family is healthy! I have been seizure free for many years now, thanks to the Lord’s sweet provision and the ability to pay for the medication necessary to keep me well!
3. John, not only has a job in this uncertain economy, but it is a job that is truly a gift from God. He has had several opportunities to witness; mostly through acts of kindness, but those are rare between inmate and officer so they speak volumes. It also gives him time/energy to pour more into our family! This is just awesome to see the fruit from this happening as we become more knit together and indivisible for the work that God has called us to!
4. God is providing for us and continues to take care of us above all that we could ask or think!
5. I am so THANKFUL the kids and I got to go home and visit/recharge with my relatives and Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities church family back in August. Also, very grateful for opportunities to eat food (mostly ice cream and ranch dressing) that we can’t find here in Florida.
6. We seem to have some direction about the WHY behind being here in Florida. (To be disclosed when we have more evidence/direction)
7. A family from our church in the Tri-cities will be moving down, possibly within a year, to come alongside us in what the Lord has planned! We are pretty
8. As per the Lord’s direction, we have been house hunting again in an area that is about 45 minutes, yet only 20 miles, SouthEast of our current location. The town we are looking in/ around is called Lehigh acres.
9. The housing market is still pretty affordable here, but prices are slowly rising because investors are saturating the market. It has also been a bit tricky to navigate this market for these reasons:
~Foreclosures that have been ‘invisibly’ or visibly trashed. Some people are so upset they are losing their homes that they pour cement down the drains & toilets to make sure whoever buys the house has to “pay” for taking it away from them. They get back at the bank by selling off all light fixtures, pool equipment, AC/HVAC systems, kitchen cabinets, ect.
~Short sales: a term that basically says “I am trying to avoid foreclosure with my dignity and credit in tact. PLEASE buy my house for less than what I paid for it. However, since I really don’t want to HAVE to sell it to you, don’t expect me to let you see my house or negotiate a price for 1/3 of what I paid.”
~ Chinese drywall, which the government says is perfectly safe to inhale inert Strontium isotopes that stink like rotten eggs? It is in many of the homes on the market but is not disclosed since it is ‘safe’. Many of the homes built between the years of 2004 to 2006 are effected and since this was a time when there was a huge housing boom it is hard to know what is and is not a home with that drywall. It is so sad to see that people had to go into foreclosure on their ‘dream homes’ because they were unlivable. Even if you have one sheet of this stuff in your home it will cause BIG problems. It breaks down appliances, AC units and damages copper wiring within the year. People who have lived in these homes have the same health problems, however, even though the complaints are the same it is unrelated to the drywall? No worries though……. Obama will LOAN you upwards of 100,000 to ‘fix’ your unrepairable home. Many are struggling to afford their mortgages ‘as is’ and are then forced to foreclose. GRRRRR!
With all these obstacles in our path we are SO GRATEFUL we are seeking the Lord for direction. Only He knows what house we should have so when He says NO, it is easy to walk away KNOWING HE has our best interests at heart.
10. Ever since we realized that my seizure disorder would not be able to sustain another pregnancy, I knew that God gave me a hope that we would adopt to complete our family. John half-heartily agreed with this notion because, he saw how
11. I am so thankful that the Lord has chosen this time of isolation for our family. Weird I know, but it has caused John & I to take a very good look at the fact that “you are going to get out of your children, exactly what you put into them”. Yes, we homeschool, yes we use Christian curriculum, yes, we talk about what the Lord is doing for us as a family and how He relates to us. However, how much of this is just scratching the surface? How much of this really cultivates a relationship with us AND more importantly, Jesus? Meaning if they only hear about the Lord through quaint little stories at church and via a short devotional in the morning before school, are they really equipped or are they starving spiritually! Since this has been brought to our attention, we have been doing family devotions in the evening. Just going through the word, reading and answering questions. I only wish we had started doing this earlier as it allows them to ask us questions without shame for not knowing. It gives us opportunities to diffuse all the worlds influences that creep to tempt their hearts. A place in our children’s hearts needs to be cultivated more proactively in the world we live in. The bonus is getting to see them grow in the Lord more fervently, turn to Him when they struggle in their sin AND, most importantly, get victory over those areas they give to the Lord.
12. This year we got to have someone over for Thanksgiving that we know from back home! A former co-worker of John’s moved here to Cape Coral about a couple months ago. We have gotten together a couple times to share our ‘confusion’ with the new culture here in Florida and swapping stories from back home. John and she also had a nice time swapping work stories of their time spent at Benton county as well as being so THANKFUL each of them no longer work there.
I know this is longer than I promised so I will stop there! I am thankful for more than just these things but I know you are already probably thinking “I don’t really care whatever else you are thankful for because you are so long winded” and ready to move along to check your Facebook page. Please just don't post a status update of that you now "need a nap because Theresa's blog is so long"! I will still chose to love you even if you do this but I may send you a poopy diaper in the mail. I work in the church nursery! :o) For those of you naysayers like Ryan, I, just want to let you know, there are 3 separate posts I started along these lines and never got finished because they were a bit too long individually. So, in a way this really is LONG STORY SHORT! He He! Hope you all are well and enjoying getting ready for your Christmas celebration! BIG CHRISTMAS HUGS SENT FROM FLORIDA! Especially because I am not sure if we will get Christmas pics out this year! Anyone want to come celebrate Christmas on the beach with us? Just let me know!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
