Seeking God's heart in the New Year

I love reading New Years resolutions and seeing the plans of those I care about. It really shows the heart of the person. I love the hope and the will to do what is right.

Personally I have never written any New Years resolutions, maybe for fear that I will mess up. I am one that if I have a plan and the plan somehow gets messed up I simply quit. The idea of not completing something properly scares me into just not doing it.

I am now with prayer and an open heart going to post my New Years resolutions. In 2010 I plan to:

1. Wholeheartedly seek the will of God for each day.
2. Finish the book of Isaiah and gain the understanding the Lord has for me in doing so.
3. Get up and move....exercise, so that I am in better health
4. Read at least 12 NEW books this year. Some of which have been collecting dust in my bookcase, while waiting for the perfect time to read them.
5. Memorize a scripture a week along with my children.
6. try making a new dish for my family at least once a month
7.
8.
9.
10.
I plan to add to this list as I feel the Lord speaking to me and to what He needs me to do. My feeling is you you can have more than one day to make this particular list. Your life changes and God is daily showing you your path and what you need to do to accomplish the art of staying on the path.

Now I pray over this list and ask that the Lord bless me and give my the strength to stick to and get these things done. I pray that the Lord send me the books he wants me to read, that will cause me to go deeper into his love and purpose for my life.

What are your New Years Goals???????????? Take some time to pray and seek God before you write them down.

Snow......in awe of the creator

The snow fell like a blanket yesterday. It was beautiful. It is kind of sad that it is melting now, but as it does it seams to be washing the earth. I am uncertain as to why we get snow when rain also washes the earth and just as well. I realize it is due to the rain freezing and all of the scientific stuff, but why do we get snow. It is so peace full as it falls. The world seams to go quiet and the inside of a person just fills with joy. You can see an adult change into a child with the first snowflake. I think inside of my heart I believe that God gives us this special, beautiful gift every once in a while. It is the same as a child's laughter, or the suddenness of getting to see an eagle take to flight, or the crash of the waves.

I am in awe at the wonder of nature. I do not worship it, but the creator. He makes all things beautiful and perfect. We are his creation as well. He has made each of us in his image, but each of us are made differently. We are also given free choice weather or not to follow Him and his ways. Everything the Lord does and gives to us is a blessing.

Lord God thank you for the blessings you give me daily and for knowing my every need, even if it was an unexpected snowfall.

An unexpected answer

I have been feeling down and frustrated and sad. I had decided this was going to be a long night because I can't sleep when I am in this state of mind. I finally got really agitated and just gave up on everything and on the fight to keep going.

I run away from situations and tonight I ran to the solitude of my shower. I have been doing everything I can lately (including not typing what the Lord is saying to me in this blog) to not hear the quietness or stillness, because in this the problems of this world just well up and I feel under attack. I have been being obedient and praying us through these things, but I never let go of the control. I was still trying to fix it myself.

In the shower I knew that the Lord was telling me to stand up, lean on him, and let go. I then came and sat down to wright on my blog in obedience to Him, but before I got to this page to type I saw the blog of someone I love and trust. The message was simple "Just keep walking", it was then followed by scriptures that spoke about walking with the Lord and for the Lord. Not giving up. Keep moving in the direction of the Lord.

I feel right now like I can handle what has been thrown at me. I can handle anything as long as I let God be the one to hold me up and deal with it. I need to stop this fighting and rest in his arms. I know He has the perfect plans and solutions. He knows what He is doing and I am taken care of.

Thank you Lord for your amazing answers to my prayers. Please help me to stay on this right path and to not give up.

Thank you

I love Christmas and spending it with family. I love my Mom, Dad and sister. We always had a great time celebrating, weather we were just us or spent it with my Grandparents and all the cousins... Every year is wonderful, especially now that I have my husband and my boys.

This last weekend my Mom and Dad joined us for the weekend. We visited, played games, opened gifts and best of all they joined me at my Church. I got to watch my Mother melt in the hands of God yesterday. The song was new to her and the Holy Spirit opened her ears and she allowed him to touch her heart. This was a Christmas gift from the Lord to me and one that will be with her for a long time.


When I got merried and my family grew, there were more people to love and to love me. We have desperatly tried for years to get my Sister-In-Law and her family to be able to be here with us for Christmas. The date was finally set for this year, the tickets bought and now we are making the preperations. This year, for the first time my In-laws will have all of their children and Grandchildren together on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I don't think any of us could have gotten Grandma Pam a better gift ever than this one.

Thank you Lord for
56. Family
57. Your son you sent
58. For one special day set aside that we are all to celebrate those we love
59. My Mother and Father
60. your Holy Spirit seeing what each of us need and giving it to us special each time.
61. That my boys have a special relationship with all of their Granparents
62. That my boys were so eager to go away with my parents for the week that they tried to carry all of their lugage out in one trip and almost forgot to hug me.
63. The looks on their faces when they see the Christmas lights, trees and presents; and the anticipation of Christmas Day

Thank you Lord for loving us enough to send us your son to save us. I can't wait for His next return.

The Lord loves us no matter what!

I have always had trouble sleeping and called it Insomnia. I would do everything I could think of from drowning out the quiet with T.V., radio, sleeping pills, ect. These helped for me to get to sleep, but I was never rested.

About 2 years ago, as I was crying out for healing from this, God spoke to me about it. His words were simply "It's not insomnia, it's me." I was floored. The person I was crying out to for help with what I thought was an "illness", was trying to minister to me in the quiet of my house. HE was keeping me up and waking me up in the middle of the night all these years to talk to me or to show me a scripture or to prepare my lessons. I stopped using sleep aides unless I am sick or sleeping somewhere that is loud and different. The Lord still talks to me and keeps me up at wierd hours, but I now listen to what he has to say. These nights that I obey, and do as He says, He gives me the rest I need...even if I only sleeep for 3 hours in a night. These have been my breakthrough nights. These are the nights that he guides my steps and helps me to know what to do next in the little and the big things. These are the most fullfilling and healing nights that I have. I can tell when I am running from him and not wanting to heal, these are the restless no sleep nights, that I in all of me that is human calls insomnia. I know better and the next night I try to be a better daughter.

Today, on a day I thought I would be sleeping in, God woke me up to talk to me about an amazing book I have been reading. "Redeeming Love" by Francine Rivers. It is written based on the book of the Bible called "Hosea". God has the prophet Hosea take a prostitute as a wife, but warns him that she will be unfaithful and have children from other men. God then goes on to tell Hosea that he is to take her back each time. This was to illustrate God's relationship with Isreal.

Wow! This also speaks about our lives. How many times have I looked at what God has given me as a provision for my life and then slapped him in the face by going back to my old ways and sinning. He forgives us each time and each time he calls us His Beloved and takes us back.

He also tells us that even though we come to him a mess, he still wants to call us his bride. He picks us up, washes us off, sets us on our feet and says go. We try and fail over and over, until we willingly lean on our Father God, our beloved and say, "ok, I am ready, how do you want me to do it". Even though God shows us how, many times we still try our own way first, just like a child. Our failures mount up in our eyes like horible things hauting us and running after us, but God only sees what we will be. He loves us so much that just like a parent who is teaching a child to walk, He picks us up, brushes us off, sets us on the right path and he lets go. It is our choise DAILY to choose the right things. It is our choice DAILY to either waist the time given to us or to live fully and whole hearted for God. To never turn back to the old us.

Thank you Lord for taking time for me. For taking time to minister so personally to each one of us. To teach us your ways.

Christmas ......

Christmas traditions are a huge deal. From where you get your Christmas tree, to what Christmas music you listen to, what ornaments you buy and put on, who puts the lights and tree topper on the tree, what goes on the outside of the house.




My parents always made this part of Christmas special. We would go and pick out the tree from the lot. Mom and us girls would pull down the super huge box, while Dad was at work to get ready. I am not sure why we always used this huge box, the bottom of it was flimsy and always tried to fall out and the sides weren't much better, all of us complained about it, but there you are...Tradition. The Christmas music would be turned on. Dad would untangle the lights, which of course were a mess, while Mom made "eggnog" (you know the fake kind with no alcohol) and cut up Grandmas fruitcake that we were sent every year. Tracy and i would dig out the nativity scene, snow globes, stockings.







No matter what house we lived in these all would go into the same general place. Our stockings were red and white with our names spelled out in red and green glitter. The lights would still be a mess, so we being kids would "try" to help, but were sent off to "organize" the ornaments. Mom and Dad would put the lights and the garland on the tree. Then Dad would sit down to watch us all putting the decorations on the tree. We all had special ones that we liked to put on the tree. Then the most beautiful angel would come out of her box. I loved this angel. We would put her up on top of the tree and plug it in. WOW! What beauty. We would eat the yummy snack that had been prepared. Sing some carols while Mom played the piano. We would say a prayer. Mom would have us get ready for bed. Then as my sister and i lay there we would sometimes listen to Mom and Dad sing songs together. It was a nice way to fall asleep. Then on Christmas Eve we would go to the store and each of us would go and pick out an ornament. This is how we built up our collection. This was a tradition until I was about 11, because we had so many by then. My first one that I remember picking out, when I was 5 years old, was this toy soldier. He was amazing to me and still is. He was the first ornament to be placed on the tree by me and he still is. My parents gave me the angel when I got married, she later got ruined and my husband got me an almost identical replacement.







When my husband and I got married we brought our families traditions to the marriage just like everything else. Slowly over the 11 1/2 years and as our children have grown, the traditions of our families have melded and some of our own have taken there place. Jason goes to the mountains to pick out our tree. There is still the Christmas music. My Grandmother has stopped making the fruitcake and I am unable to have eggs. I put the lights and garland on. The boys help me put on the ornaments, I still put my toy solder on the tree. My angel goes on the top of the tree. Instead of us all getting an ornament, the boys are given one on Christmas day. We do have our stockings, Eric's was Jason's childhood one. On Christmas Eve the boys open PJ's so that they have new ones to sit and open gifts in.

The main tradition that stayed with me and I will never let go of is the story of our Lord and the reason we have this day set aside. On Christmas Eve the Mom gets to read the Night before Christmas. Then Grandma reads the Bible story. We pray. Grandma would make sure all of us understood why we celebrated Christmas. If it was a weekend we would go to Church.

If it were not for God choosing to send up his son Jesus to save us, we wouldn't have all the rest. Please remember, as you go through this holiday season, to keep Jesus as the center. It isn't about what you get Christmas morning it is about what He gave on the cross. Thank you my Lord.

A fun filled day with my boys.

I took my boys Christmas shopping on Saturday. We decided when our oldest was about 3 years old to let our kids pick out what they wanted to give to to family members. We started with a Mom and Dad gift. Then when we had our second child and he was 4 we decided to start them getting gifts for family members. It was super fun to take those little guys (age 4 and 7) to Christmas shop at the $ tree. That year I decided if they picked it out then that is what people were going to get. One person got a lint brush, another clothes pins, a mug...and so on. Last year we were doing really well finatially so we went to $5 gifts instead of $ gifts. That was just as much fun and the boys still unerstood the idea of giving being just as good, if not better than getting. This year things are tighter, but we made sure to put this shopping trip into our budget. Instead of each boy giving each person a gift, they are giving one together. They still got the idea and they love thinking about each family member and what the person would want. I love that they are understanding that Christmas is about much more than getting stuff. Thank you Lord for the tools to teach my kids about Christmas and your love. I am still focused on having a symplistic Christmas. Family and my Lord mean more to me than what is under the tree.

52. a day with my boys
53. family that is understanding of a child
54. the love my family shows to my boys
55. stores that don't inflate the prices of things