Be Still and Know...Then and Now

One of the things that I hope will continue, but realistically I know will one day end are my daughters nite nite prayers. She still has the routine of wanting either me or my husband to come into her room for a good night prayer. It is now 9:45 and I just realized that for the next week I will have no nite nights, it is 9:45 and the only person I have to tell to take a shower is me.

I am not even sure I know where to start for this post. I have seven days all to myself. My husband and daughter (this is her very first time in the mission field, so I have to confess to being a bit anxious) have departed for the mission field in Mexico. I found that the first few hours were a bit nerve wracking until I returned home for running errands to find a message on the machine that they had arrived in Texas and were awaiting their connecting flight. My anxiety level was lessened with the knowledge that they were half way to their destination. But travel anxiety aside, I am now faced with a unique opportunity. I have my house all to myself for seven whole days. The hugeness of this concept has not fully made its way into my brain as of yet. I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a couple of DVD’s, I actually got to pick a movie that I wanted to see. I shopped for food that required minimal preparation insuring that I could quite possibly not cook for the week as well. I ...

(Sing with me people…….) I could while away the hours, conferrin ' with the flowers Consultin ' with the rain. And my head I'd be scratchin ' while my thoughts were busy hatchin ' If I only had a brain. I'd unravel every riddle for any individ'le , In trouble or in pain. With the thoughts you'll be thinkin ' you could be another Lincoln If you only had a brain. Oh, I could tell you why The ocean's near the shore. I could think of things I never thunk before. And then I'd sit, and think some more. I would not be just a nothin ' my head all full of stuffin ' My heart all full of pain. I would dance and be merry, life would be a ding-a- derry , If I only had a brain. Not only is this one of my favorite movies, it is now for the next several hours my personal theme song. So proceed with caution for the operator of this blog is officially no longer in possession of a working brain. Sadly I may look like a very normal person from all outwa...

A friend sent me this link today, I thought it was very interesting. Keep praying for God to reveal the truth, I will step out in faith and say with confidence that all the prayers for discernment and for the truth to be revealed are beginning to open people's eyes. 5/26: Cracks in the Oprah empire If you want to read all the comments from this article you can folllow this link above. I will warn you that there is a very equal mix of positive and negative comments, so proceed with caution. By Rodney Ho Monday, May 26, 2008, 08:06 PM The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Her TV show lost 7 percent of its ratings year over year. Circulation of her magazine is down 10 percent over the past three years. And “Oprah’s Big Give” didn’t do nearly as well as ABC had expected and she chose not to do another installment. The story speculated that her endorsement of Barack Obama turned off her more conservative viewers and Hillary Clinton fans. (She has virtually stopped actively campaigning for h...

In honor of Memorial Day my daughter and I seized the moment and left my van in the driveway and walked the mile plus through the park that is next to our subdivision to watch the Annual Memorial Day Parade. We found a nice shady spot and set up our chairs. We had the perfect vantage point in between the library and fire station, we sat and watched as fire trucks, motorcycle officers, retired veterans in military vehicles, civic groups, the local high school prom queen and her court paraded by. Lots (and lots) of sparkly tiaras and miss this or miss that, cheerleaders, girl scouts and boy scouts. Now I can defiantly say that the candy tossing took on a new dimension as soon as the boy scouts paraded through. The term duck and cover took on a whole new meaning as they lobed and pelted large handfuls of candy with near rocket precision. Thankfully no one was blinded by the speeding bullets of hard candy and tootsie rolls. Let’s just say if you could sit on a flat bed and toss candy you w...

My phone chimed with that familiar ring that tells me that my son is calling. I was slightly taken aback as it was disconnected the last time we tried to contact him. Alas the concept of his calling just to see how I was was shattered almost instantly as the first question out of his mouth was “Hey, mom has any mail come for me?” Now if you read between the lines what he was really saying was have any birthday cards with potential cash arrived in the mail for me. Even with self serving purpose for his call it was good to hear his voice and for the moment know that he is OK. So I give a giant thank you to my wonderful God for at least temporarily relieving my motherly concern with a very brief albeit selfish conversation with my beloved.

I have to share with all of you that I am in an unusual pace. For so long all I wanted was some peace and quiet. All I wanted was for the anxiety and the tension to be removed from my home. Thoughts like “I just want him out of my home!” would be daily occurrences’ in my conversations. Immediately after these kinds of thoughts I would feel like a horrible mother. But it did not make it any less true. After a while the well of your motherly compassion runs a bit dry after you have been verbally abused, taken advantage of and lied to for the millionth time. Your motherly compassion tends to be placed on the back burner when you find revolting reading material hidden under the sofa in his room. Your motherly compassion is beginning to run on fumes with every new lie or new situation you see him enter into that you find questionable or heartbreaking. But here is the strange part. For as much as I wanted the turmoil and deceit that his presence brought into our lives to be removed, I find t...

Today is the first day of summer vacation, my blossoming new teenager is sleeping late, I am remembering my wedding day some 26 years ago, there is a thin layer of dust on the hardwood floors in my sunroom, several stacks of folded towels waiting to be put away in the middle of my living room floor and I am listening to the birds outside as I compose this post. I am not sure that I have anything deep to share with you this morning, but in an effort to avoid the dust and the towels (or wake my child) I will forge ahead. I have moments when things are so very clear, when I feel that the words just come and a miracle happens and they actually make sense. Quite possibly this in not one of these moments. Today what comes to my mind is my quiet time. I know I am not alone in my struggle to stay focused during my prayer time, however lately I have found it increasingly difficult to block out the invading thoughts. I will be settled in to pray and then my grocery list will be scrolling through...

As promised, when I find any information that is helpful in refuting the false teaching being promoted by Oprah and Eckhart Tolle I will pass them on to you. I received my daily devotion from Proverb 31 today it was written by Lysa TerKeurt , it was all about "The New Earth" and what to say when speaking to someone who may be reading this book. After reading the devotional I immediately went to her blog. This post (see link to the post below) I found to day is by far one of the best sources I have found so far. It gives some very real and solid foundations that you can use when you are talking about why "The New Earth" is false teaching. Nothing But the Truth “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” I Peter 3:15 (NIV)

What’s your name? Do you go by your middle name? Do you have a nick name? How did you get your name? I am very fortunate. I have an accountability group that I meet with every Thursday evening. During our meetings we talk about our week, we pray together and share with each other how God has been working in our lives. Last night as we began our meeting the topic of names came up. You see most of the young couples in our mist are busy procreating. Babies are everywhere. We discussed this for several minutes. Why? Names are important! Someone has a baby, your first question is "What is the baby's name?" Names are important, see what happens when your social security number and your name don’t match up on an insurance form, have someone open a credit card in your name and find out how important your identity really is. I have special names of endearment for my children, my husband, my niece and my nephew. We all have a name and we like to be acknowledges by that name. I know...

I love God’s sense of humor, His sense of timing and His complete and perfect ability to have things fall into place at the exact right moment for everything to begin to make sense (at least for a few brief moments of clarity, before the wind of the day changes and things become confusing again). I thought about the hidden meaning in the title of the chapter. My struggles are about him (my son) or Him our Heavenly Father. As I could not seem to stop thinking about the nature of suffering, this was a huge indicator that God was leading me in the direction to take a deeper look at it in relation to myself. Don’t-cha just hate it when that happens. A very dear friend and me were having our near daily conversations, she and I are in very similar boats with regards to living with rebellion. She made a comment to me that has been stuck in my thoughts since I hung up the phone with her. She said and I quote “There are different levels of surrender.” You see we talk about this all the time. We...

Silly me I thought my struggles were about me (NOT!). Who knew! We are reading “It’s Not About Me” by Max Lucado in our Sunday School class. I was making my way through chapter 12 entitled “My struggles are about him” and came across this question. “Is there any chance, any possibility, that you have been selected to struggle for God?” Page 125 “It’s Not About Me” by Max Lucado. If I didn’t have such respect for the written word, I probably would have ripped that page right out of the book. But wait it gets better ..........or maybe worse! Max goes on to write: “Have you been “granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” Phil1:29. Now I am really tempted to rip the page right out of the binding. Oh but it get worse ............or maybe better. He continues “Here is a clue. Do your prayers seem to be unanswered? What you request and what you receive aren’t matching up? Don’t think God is not listening, indeed he is. He may have higher plans.” T...

As promised, when I find any resources regarding Oprah and her New Age agenda I am committed to making the information available to you so you in turn may be informed and have the tools necessary to discern for yourself the truth. A friend sent an email to me with a link to this web site. The first link is very helpful with resources that you can download about how to answer various questions as well as links to other articles. The second two links are actual transcripts of a two part radio program aired on May 1 and 2, where they discussed the teachings of Oprah and Eckhart Tolle. Learn to Discern ~ Other Resources This first link above you can either listen to the recorded radios show or you can follow the two links below directly to the transcripts of the show. Learn to Discern Part I Learn to Discern Part II

It is amazing how a very small detail, a seemingly insignificant detail, has the power to impact the outcome of either your success or failure. In the grand scheme of thing this particular example really is of no significant what so ever. But as I thought about what brought about the insignificant situation it began to flesh out for me in a very real and significant way. Here is a life lesson: When baking follow the recipe exactly! You see I am making a small wedding cake for a dear friend. It is a very small cake and I will also share in that is has been many years since I actually have done a wedding cake. After having located all the pans, turntables, decorating tips, separator plates, columns etc. necessary (as they were all packed away in boxes in the attic) I set about to find an appropriate pound cake recipe or the occasion. I found a recipe that I thought would work very well, I gathered all my ingredients and set to work. What resulted was one of the worst cake disasters I thi...