Catching up

Dear blog,

I'VE MISSED YOU!

This summer has been a whirlwind of activity and I purposed to stay away. I've thought of you oft!
I can sit in front of you and tap on these keys for hours with thoughts, impressions, encouragements, personal insights, sadness and joy.
In my search for health, fitness and fun I decided my behind needed as much exercise as my fingers achieve chatting with you through the long, cold and rainy winter months.

From A to Zumba it's been a full summer.

I feel in some respects it's a year of LASTS. As my daughter turns 18 to my son turning 16 and driving off alone.
One last summer vacation, last of the family movie nights, last berry picking, last long lazy walks, last school supply shopping, and one last high school registration just to name a few.

My best friend http://frenzy-tracy.blogspot.com/ last year in Oregon. Girl you will be missed.
I look to this year with a square set of shoulders, forward motion, many rich memories and a tight hold to a box of tissues.

It's also a year of new beginnings and I can't keep my eyes from capturing the firsts as well.

Alas as we say farewell to a rich and full summer and hello to hopefully a cozy and fruitful fall.

#106-115

Giving thanks for sun and His Son, Turquois waters, scary rides, smooth plane rides, adventures, the feel of the warm Caribbean sea enveloping me entirely, sound of crashing waves, silliness and HOME!

Customize a slideshow

World of Color

St. Martin

Nike 2011 Surfing Open Hunnington Beach

Locals

A piece of my heart

Avid Tomboy, drummer extraordinaire, snowboarder, long boarder, lover of fake facial hair and dressing up as oddly as possibly, gangsta, puddle jumper, paintballer, fashionista, cartwheeling, dancing on my counters, lover of laughter and passionate follower of Jesus.

Today you have surgery and so many are praying for you and lifting you. You have grown into a magnificent young woman that I learn from daily. God has blessed me greatly with an amazing daughter.

The secret

Wednesday's Word



♥



I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

Philippians 4:11-12 

Pushing through

Tuesday's Quotes

“Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to the tremendous difficulties”

~C.H. Spurgeon~

Nick Vujicic

Dead Sea kind of week

  

The intense pressure, the roaring wave that has curled up over my head this week.
Thundering down and engulfing my nights with a ponderous weight of problems.

The clouds roll in quickly, thick and dense. My breath threatened. I stare into the blackness praying. The seconds turn to minutes...to hours. The deep ache threatens to break my heart in two.

The waves have seemed too towering, and I feel like I'm trying to move a mountain with a teaspoon.

So many needs a heart can anguish for before it gives way. So many hurting, a heart can't bare up under the burden.
The world seems in chaos, The economy is failing, our country has lost it's foundational focus, marriages are crumbling, cancer is winning, people are without Him and even those with Him... lost.

--crushing--submerging--beneath a churning, turbulent sea of troubles.

Dead Sea

GOD's PROVISION....
Swim up, swim up through the turbulence of dilemma, to rise to the surface and to stand, YES, to walk on the waters, to walk victorious on the very waves that threaten to drown!
God has made a provision, and it is called PRAYER.
We can pray, and with power.

"Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal."

--Thomas Moore--

David was overwhelmed. He said so. He cried out to God. But David knew how to pray when he was overwhelmed.
This is why He (God) has placed this knowledge in His Book. In the 142nd Psalm David prays.
A man crushed and weighed down,
"I cried unto the Lord with my voice; with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication. I poured out my complaint before Him; I showed Him my trouble when my spirit was overwhelmed within me."

He voiced his dilemma. This is important. The enemy of our life, which is Satan, will attempt to seal our lips. He will try to make us crawl deep down inside ourself and lick our wounds. He wants us to cower beneath his blows and suffer in silence. This is the first step into spiritual isolation.

Don't take that step!

Verbalize your prayer. Speak to God out loud. Tell Him your problems in your own words,

"God, please help me"!

"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today and forever".
He is the same today. He can open your Red Sea. He can provide all we need in that wilderness of poverty.

Life may be as flat and colorless as water, but He can change it into wine. He can put life and color into every day. This is the kind of God we have! A loving God. A forgiving God. A good and merciful God. Call upon His Name! Call upon His Name believing and expecting.

I will put it into practice and walk on the waters.
I will not be swallowed up by troubles.
I WILL grow from a weak woman in prayer to a tower of strength. When I pray, the room will take on a sense of power because of Him through me.

Faith will charge the very atmosphere.

A life all about worship and counting 1000 gifts!

#101
Leaning on His promises through thick and thin
#102
Valleys that lead to the high places
#103
Friends that listen
#104
The power He has given us through prayer
#105
Feelings are just that.

Sense of Freshness

Funny Friday

A while ago a new supermarket opened in Las Vegas, NV. It has an automatic water mister to keep the produce fresh.  Just before it goes on, you hear the sound of distant thunder and the smell of fresh rain.

 When you pass the milk cases, you hear cows mooing and you experience the scent of fresh mowed hay.

In the meat department there is the aroma of charcoal grilled steaks with onions.

When you approach the egg case, you hear hens cluck and cackle, and the air is filled with the pleasing aroma of bacon and eggs frying.

The bread department features the tantalizing smell of fresh baked bread and cookies.

I don't buy toilet paper there anymore.

His first Marathon.

My other family♥

PERFORMANCE IS CANCELLED

Wednesday's Word

My Spiritual Worship is obedience.

Any kind of law-keeping is burdensome and amounts to a “heavy yoke” of oppression because

no amount of law-keeping can bridge the gap between our sinfulness and God’s holiness.

WE CANNOT PERFORM OUR WAY TO THE PEARLY GATES!

What makes Jesus’ yoke easy and his burden light is that in Jesus’ own active obedience (i.e., his perfect fulfillment of the Law of God), He carried the burden that we were meant to carry. His perfect obedience is applied (imputed) to us through faith, just as His righteousness was exchanged for our sin at the cross. Our obedience to Jesus then becomes our “spiritual worship”.

Furthermore, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit who works in our lives to mold us into the image of Christ, thereby making the yoke of Jesus easy and His burden light. The life lived by faith is a much lighter yoke and a much easier burden to carry than the heavy and burdensome yoke of self-righteousness under which we continually strive to make ourselves acceptable to God through works.