Tidbits

Happy 2 month birthday my fat little buddy. Gage is 2 months old, tube free and eating like a little piggy!

While the rest of the world eagerly watches the evening news to find out who the next president will be, Leslie dedicates her brain cells to studying biology.

Virginia avoids her mother with camera in hand. She is hiding in the bathroom, under the guise of washing her hair, but is actually eating Laffy Taffy, the deadly sin of braces!

And Wayne, well Wayne is working late. Yeah,he'll be doing alot of that when you-know-who is elected and destroys the small business man with his tax increases!

A Preacher Man

Christopher Bagley is my niece's boyfriend and he is a preacher man. He just recently informed his family and friends that God has called him to be a preacher. Pretty big responsibility, and growing up a preachers kid, I can testify that his life is forever changed.

Last night was his first official sermon. It was quite an event. The service was really cool because it felt like the entire church family was just enveloping him in love. It was quite a celebration with laughter, tears, singing, shouting, hugging and finally we all settled down to hear from the preacher man. Let me just say, in my churchgoing years, I've heard lots of first timers, and we waited with nervous expectation. Preacher Bagley brought it! From Romans, 8 he preached on the importance of prayer in our lives. His presentation was flawless, he never stuttered or lost his place. None of that really matters however, because time and experience will smooth any preacher. No, what really impressed me was to see this shy quiet boy, transform into a steady confident preacher man. His words were sure, not from experience, but from conviction that he was God's messenger.

I'll remember Christopher's first sermon when he is a big time preacher. He is now responsible to marry and bury all of us. God has big plans for him.
At any rate, it'll be lots of fun watching my Lynn grandparent preachers kids!

Ripe old age

Well, I always figured I live to be 100, but according to THIS, I'm only gonna make it to 89. Seems that my stress and candy bar habit are killing me.

I'm so embarrased

The girls have been dying to dress Ginger up. I'm not so sure she was that happy about it. In fact, she hid in the bed with her daddy. Too much for her to handle!

Guilt free living

In Him we have redemption through His blood,

the forgiveness of sins

in accordance with the riches of God's grace

that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.

Ephesians 1:7-8

God forgave me according to how rich He is, not according to how sorry I am, or how much I deserve to be forgiven. Just because He is God, He is love and He loves to be that good to me. No need for feeling guilty or bringing up yesterday sins. If you are remembering old sins, it's not God who's reminding you, He's forgotten.

28:19

That's my 5K time! Pretty fast for an old lady! That breaks down to a 9:39 mile. Yeah I'm pretty proud of myself. I won't tell you that at my present time my nephew Clinton is smokin' me. But I was reminded today that racing is all about competing against yourself. Words to live by. But in my shallow moments, it felt really good to glide on by those pretty little college girls half my age who by the way were struggling to breathe and having to walk at mile 2.5. Now I'll go take a nice long soak in a hot bubble bath, my reward for a race well run!

It's amazing what a little break can do

I volunteer at our church's indigent clinic every Thursday night. I see patients that have no insurance or money, and afterwards, volunteers pray with these people and generally just love on them. We have lots of volunteers that come, and to be honest, we are somewhat of a family. Don't be impressed, there are lots of nights I don't want to go. Jerry my friend started the clinic about two years ago and although I love it, sometimes it's really a love-hate relationship. I hate it when I'd rather be at home, and I love it too much to stop doing it.

To be honest, the last few months I felt myself teetering on the edge of burn out. The month of October brought lots of activities, a mission trip, a cruise, so my Thursday nights have been filled with other things. It has been so good to have a break and guess what? I really wanted to be back there. Tonight was such a super night. I laughed so hard with my friends, volunteers and patients. Some of my patients wanted to know where I had been, they missed me. I was surprised they had got along fine without me the past few weeks, maybe a little disappointed they had. Mostly I felt energized! I was ready to do this thing that God has called me to do. It felt good.

What is the task that you are called to do that is sometimes just so hard? Take a break, take a little care of yourself, so you can take care of others. It's good to step back, relax and get your focus back on straight. You find that you miss it, and that you can't wait to do the thing your called to do. Lesson learned is this--- don't let yourself burn out. Sometimes the embers just needs to be stoked.