~ Cherish Them, Today ~

In the last 24 hours the Lord has caused me stop and realize how much I take life for granted as I get caught up in the daily grind. Laundry, meals, cleaning toilets, laundry, errands, settling sibling quarrels, laundry, boos-boos, and, more laundry takes so much of my time and attention, that I fail to cherish those that He gave me to journey through life with.

Yet, I went to sleep last night not begging Him for my usual list of "pleases", but, tearfully praising Him for the blessings of my precious loved ones that make my life so full of joy.

What has changed my focus in the last 24 hours?

* My mom was admitted to the hospital with a blood clot in her lung ~ at any moment, we could have lost her!
* My husband's aunt was found to have not 1, but, 2 brain aneurysms ~ has defied the odds, 1 in a billion to be exact, and survived!
*As I was getting ready to inflate the air mattress for my husband's family to sleep on, I smelled something extremely hot, and, realized that I was holding the pump, at the end of a smoking and sparking charger ~ I am still in complete unbelief that I was not electrocuted!
* In the last couple days, I have been facing the possibility of my own personal health being dramatically threatened ~ potentially changing the focus of my future.

While I have never been one to wallow in sorrow and focus on the 'bad things' ~ I feel that through this last day, my God has made me stop for a moment and realize how precious my loved ones are, and, how I fail to cherish them while we are here on earth together.

I know we have all heard it before, and, need to hear it over and over again ~ love your family and friends while you can. Spend more time with them and less time doing what truly, has no effect on eternity.

~ Make mac & cheese for dinner, not the fancy lasagna, and, instead, read with your 6 year old
~ The toilets can skip being washed one day, and, play racing on Play Station 2 with your son
~ Call your friend later, and, lay on the floor to play Barbies or Polly Pockets
~ Call your family members today, just to say I love you and share a special memory with them
~ Instead of snapping at your son because he can't find his mitt ~ this time, just help him find it
~ Match the socks tomorrow morning, play Go Fish today
~ Realize how very precious life is and that every minute is a gift from Him who love you so!

Well, you all have a beautiful weekend, I gotta go wish my brother happy birthday, find a mitt, hear Walter the Whale, and try to get around that crazy figure 8 track using a controller with way too many buttons! :)

~ Conquer Yourself Beautifully ~

I have been an avid reader since before I started school. And, while most kids were reading comic books or the usual childhood classics, I was reading biographies. The lives of those who were great in so many varied ways drew me in, and, I just could not read enough. Then, as I hit 5th grade, I became the kind of kid that most kids hate, the librarian's pet :) and, got to read every new book that the school received before they even hit the shelf!

However, as an adult, I have realized that I never read the classics such as Black Beauty, Heidi, and, Little Women. So, I have set on a mission to read the 10 classics on my shelf that are beautifully bound, and, never read. And, I can see why so many of them are classics :)

As I read Little Women this weekend, I read words that I hope were life changing to me. As the girls' father was at war, he wrote a note home to let them all know how much he missed and loved them. In that letter he said he knows they will remember to

...Do their duty faithfully
Fight their bosom enemies bravely, and,
Conquer themselves beautifully...

I literally stopped after re-reading those words, and asked my Savior to help me do it all, but especially, Conquer Myself Beautifully"! As I prayed, I felt His Spirit say, 'My power is sufficient and, I have already conquered ~ you only need to conquer you on your own now'.

What do you need to Conquer Beautifully? No doubt, we all have many inner-battles that we fight daily and lose hourly. Let's see....selfishness, whining, exessive guilt, dishonesty, manipulation, spending, over-eating, laziness, perfectionism........ Did I hit one of yours yet? I know I hit quite a few of mine.

I challenge you to pick a battle that is raging deep and find the power through Him and within yourself to Conquer Yourself Beautifully. I know those words have been my prayer hundreds of times in the last few days as I turned to snap at my son in my impatience, when I felt the welling up of frustration that I was picking up dirty socks again, and mostly as I looked at the Keebler chocolate chip cookies, Eddy's ice-cream and Dove candy bars.

At the end of the day, or even the moment, if you have not given into yourself, and, conquered that temptation ~ you can say "My dear woman, you have Conquered Yourself Beautifully"!

May you finds lots of beautiful conquering moments this week, and, as our Savior watches, He will be proud to find us warriors over Satan, and, ourselves.

Conquer Yourself Beautifully!

~ In His Time ~

'A watched pot never boils'
'As slow as molasses'
'Patience is a virtue'
'In His Time'

So, we put the new roof on, and, the deal for our house still fell through ........

Hey, no one warned me that selling a house can put one in the looney home :) ........

Of course, now we have missed a large portion of the most active selling season ........

And, I found the house I want ~ just sitting, waiting for us to move in ........

However, our house is back on the market, and, we believe we should sell before we buy ........

Yow, I am up again at 300 a.m, tossing and turning about the how's, where's, and when's we will move ........

Wow, in His amazing ways, my Lord keeps speaking to me to "Be still and wait on Him" and "In His time this whole story will fall into place just as He planned"

When I was in college, my dear roomie and I had 2 goldfish ~ Rocky and Rambo (What can I say, we thought Sylvester Stallone was handsome enough to have namesakes). As our sophomore days passed, we both found ourselves waiting on Him to work in situations that needed some miracles. So, we added a third fish, In His Time.

These 3 fish were the subject of many conversations ~ "Rocky, Rambo, and, In His Time" :)

On break, I got to be the 'keeper of the fish' ~ and, I think I failed...... Because I returned to school only with In His Time ~ Rocky and Rambo were not tough enough to survive the over-feeding by a friend who I thought was handsome enough to star as Rocky or Rambo, and I did not have the heart to clean the bowl out after he fed the fish :)

Why share this you ask?

Well, as I woke-up, wide awake and in a complete panic about this house stuff, in my Savior's beautiful, and sometimes humorous way, He reminded me that 20 years ago In His Time survived Rocky and Rambo. His namesake outlasted the human namesake. His ways are so much stronger and enduring than our ways. In His Time is the way to go if I want the path to be secure and eternal.

Guess I will go back to bed, singing myself to sleep with the beautiful chorus below, and trust in His way and In His time to be the most prevailing and powerful ~ even more than Rocky and Rambo!

In His Time
In His time, in His time.
He makes all things beautiful, in His time.
Lord, please show me every day,
As You’re teaching me Your way,
That You do just what You say,
In Your time.

In Your time, in Your time,
You make all things beautiful, in Your time.
Lord, my life to You I bring,
May each song I have to sing
Be to You a lovely thing,
In Your time.

Lord, please show me everyday,
As you’re teaching me Your way
That You do just what You say
In Your time

~ I Want to Be A Follow Bird ~

I love to bask in the beauty and creativity of His Creation. And, one of my "Peace Finding Activities" is to sit on my front porch and listen to the birds as I watch them fly about.

Something I have noticed ~ they can fly together in pairs in amazingly perfect unison. When the Lead Bird goes up - the Follow Bird goes up.... Lead flys left - Follow flys left. It is as if they have studied and flown this pattern their whole lives.

And, the paths they take are never the shortest distance between two points. As they fly from tree to roof top, it is left, right, up, down, left again, up and back down in a seemingly scattered and unintentional flight. Yet - the Follow Bird stays right with the Lead Bird -

Trusting
Following
Depending
Flying

No matter how unplanned and scattered the path seems, the Follow Bird is right on the Lead Bird's tail.

I want to be a Follow Bird ~ flying right behind my Savior Lead Bird.

The path He leads me on never seems to make much sense while I am flying it ~ Yet, when I reach the roof top for a moments rest, I can see how the course had to be flown in just that way to reach my destination in the condition He desired me to be in.

Take a moment to watch His birds in the sky ~ They are such a beautiful example of how we must lead our lives.....

Trusting His Hand
Following His Path
Depending on His Wisdom
Flying With Him to Eternity