Reading the bible in 90 days, sounds like a huge undertaking for me..especially the more I think about it...in fact, if I were to think about it long enough I could talk myself right out of it!

But I won't. at least that is the plan right now.

Silly Fun..Nothing Better

Great thing is that these guys are that way most of the time! I love thier joy and their happiness!

Wanna Try a Magic Trick?

I have a magic trick to share with you!

Looks like a tray of saltines, huh?

I cannot turn water into wine...but I CAN turn crackers into candy!

And I will share my magic trick with you

First cover your Buttered, (or Pammed) cookie sheet, or sheet cake pan, with Saltines. Salt side up. Fill in any gaps with broken crackers.

Alternative; Use Cheese Its--really! These are fantatstic, get the big sized. Or you can use Club crackers too.

Once your pan is covered with a layer of crackers set it aside. Preheat your oven to 400. In a heavy bottomed sauce pan melt 2 sticks of butter, when melted add 1 packed cup of brown sugar. Blend together and bring to a bubbly boil. Cool for 3-4 minutes stirring now and then.

Pour hot mixture slowly over the sheet of crackers -----really, this will turn out!

Put in oven for 7 minutes. Make sure the liquid is all bubbly before you take it out. DO NOT touch the stuff----you will loose 9 layers of skin! (spoken from experience!)

Sprinkle one bag of chocolate chips over the top. You can use semi sweet, milk or my favorite is Hersheys Special Dark. Let set for 5- 10 minutes and then with a spatula spread the chips like you are frosting a cake. At this point you can top the candy with chopped nuts, crushed crackers, sprinkles....what ever you would like.

You can let this set out, but we generally put it in the freezer for 20 minutes. When it is cold you can pry up one corner and start breaking into chunks. Some people actually cut it, but that is far too sophisticated for me!

So your magic trick really will work..... You can turn crackers into candy

Christmas Cracker Candy

Saltines, (Club, or Big Cheese Its work Great too)

2 sticks of butter

1 cup of brown sugar packed

1 bag of chocolate chips

Nuts optional

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Line butter cookie sheet with crackers till covered completely. Melt butter in sauce pan, add brown sugar and stir till bubbly, cook 3 -5 minutes. Slowly pour over crackers, put in oven for about 7 minutes, making sure liquid is bubbly. Remove from oven and sprinkle chips ontop. Wait 5 minutes and smooth out the chocolate chips, like frosting a cake, you can add any nuts if you would like to at this time. Cool, and cut or crack into small pieces. Store in air tight container!!! My favorite version is Cheese its with Special Dark Chocolate Chips and chopped Cashews on top!

forgetfulness

As I write that title I realize that I have even forgot how to spell that word properly!

So it has taken several days for me to finally admit that I really did forget my blog account password, and I had to email for a reminder. How sad is that?

I forget far too much, and I would like to forget that another birthday is quickly approaching, but I dont see that happening anytime soon.

So in the hustle and bustle of forgetfulness, I have found things that I DO remember:

I remember when my mother added food coloring to her canned pears once. She used yellow, red, green, and blue.......all in seperate batches of course. Two years later, after she died, the blue ones were still there, no one found thoe very appealing!

I remember the last New Years Eve my mother was alive. She must have known that it would be her last. She pushed to come home from the hospital, and had a portable bed put in the living room, and we stayed up and celebrated together. Having just turned 11 that month, I had no idea what was really going on. Today I can only image the heart ache she was going through knowing that this would be the last hear she would celebrate with her children.

I remember being so anxious to see my babies, the time seemed like it would never come! And I only carried both of them for 8 months instead of 9. I loved being pregnant, I loved the excitement of it all. How I long for that kind of joy again.

What will my children remember? Thats a sobering thought right now. I need to give them more memories of happiness, love, joy, .......

I have a percription I need to fill. No, I am not sick, well not terminally that is. It's more like I have a 'condition' that this perscription can take care of. You see..... to feel better, to be cured, I need to move forward and grow in God. This prescription for achieving this is found in 2 Peter 1:3-10. There is an interesting progressive perscription that leads to true love and growth.

1 part Faith
1 part Goodness
1 part Knowledge
1 part Self Control
1 part Perseverance
1 part Godliness
1 part Brotherly Love
1 part Love

8 simple ingredients to grow in God and to grow His Kingdom. When was the last time you built something grand with 8 simple steps? These baby steps are the prescription for keeping me from stumbling in my relationships and my life. If I am practicing this progression in every area of my life, I am ultimately operating in His divine nature that has been given to me--and YOU too (2 Pet. 1:3-4). I just want to love God, love His people, and love the world He died for and this simple progressive perscription is the key.

This Imperfect Soul on a Path with Perfect Love

This imperfect soul, perfected by the blood of the Saviour is trying very hard to get back on track. That track focuses on consistant quiet time with God and His word. The track itself is perfect, God the Father set it up and laid it out. He put me, the imperfect, willful, stumbling child on that perfect track with these reminders:

(1) He is in absolute control of every circumstance in my life - (1Chronicles 29;11,12). He is my God, my Father. He knows me – (John 10:14), because He made me – (Psalm 139:13). He loves me - (Romans 5:8). I am His child – (Galatians 4:4-7), redeemed by the blood of the Lamb – (Ephesians 1:3-7).

(2) All that I am and have are from his generous hand – (James 1:17) and I am not to be a slave to either my personal tendencies or my earthly possessions. Instead, He expects me to be a good and faithful steward of my time, my gifts and my talents.

(3) As I weave my way through the varying seasons and circumstances of my life, though the way may be rocky, stormy and uncertain sometimes, I need not be anxious – (Matthew 6:25-34), because He has already designed the path of my life - (Proverbs 20:24). Moreover, He walks beside me, holds my hand, carries my burdens, steadies me when I stumble and lifts me up when I fall - (Psalm 37:23,24; 40:2; 68:19)

Worship Wednesday

Memory

Pretty sad when you can remember your blog site password for 4 days, and then it is GONE! So sad!

But now I remember it again, I will write it down, and then forget where I put the note.

Lots of new posts coming, as I have been writing like a mad man. And the more I write and get into the word I see the enemy is trying to hard to get into my head. He just needs to move on, for I will waste no time on him

Worship Wednesday

My Soul Trembles Forward

I wrote this post in the late evening hours, after working on this weeks lessons of "When Wallflowers Dance" And this morning as I read over it I wonder if I should even post it. It sounds as if I am so depressed, in such despair, but I am not. So I almost scratched it--then I realized something. I picked out a photo for my blog a couple days ago. The fog in the valley really intrigued me, I was not sure why. Then after reading what I wrote last night it is becoming a little more clear to me why I chose that photo. Everyone's valley is different and ever changing.


It is strange, this valley that I now walk. It is strange that I now walk, that I no longer stand still in utter fear and despair, that I step forward one trembling step at a time.

Above me and all around me I see the mountains that I long to roam and climb. I hope for the highest peaks, wish for the breathtaking views.
But I am in the valley now, and it must be passed. It is not without beauty. I find rest from time to time, sunlight peering through the shadows of the valley-fog to remind me that it still exists.I am afraid to pass through this valley. I don't know what waits for me along the way, and I like to operate with a plan in hand. I fear the challenge of the next mountain I may reach, I know I am not in shape—physically and spiritually. But afraid or not, I find myself walking. Harder than any climb I have ever attempted, the steps I take here are tremulous, uncertain. I am reminded that my expectation is from Him, that He is my Inheritance, my Provider. I feel shame in questioning whether that Inheritance and Provision is enough for me.I don't know.

I will never know if I do not keep moving forward.

My way is not clear before me. Perhaps it will not be ever again. I have no map in plan, no itinerary.I wonder if perhaps the strongest faith is not in the daredevil leap from a mountain's ridge, but in the tiny steps of a trembling soul toward the heart of a God who sent His own Son to die.

And death couldn't hold Him.

"I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked places straight. These things I will do for them, and not forsake them."~Isaiah 42:16

Doors without Clauses

A few weeks ago my son, Joseph, started talking about going on a Mission Trip in 2010. This has been a prayer of mine, for a door to open for Joseph that he could do something like this. He was very excited and rambling on about how he would need to start saving as soon as he was able to get a full time job. I casually asked him where they were thinking about going, and then he really got my attention---Africa and Thailand. Oh, boy! This was not what I had in mind.

So of course that night I needed to speak my mind to God. “Lord, I prayed for Joseph to be able to travel outside his familiar surroundings and do works for you, but I was thinking about cleaning up after a hurricane or something, not going to a violent, unknown, foreign country!”

Am I the only one who prays for God to open doors, but then wants to have control over which doors really are opened?

As a family, a church, or a business we often face very big things in our lives, and we come to Him in prayer. Often there are several outcomes available, each holding positive and negative qualities. Individuals have their own personal hopes, yet we all pray for God’s will.
It’s not easy praying for God’s will. To finally give your life fully over to God, and say “Okay, Father. I’ve decided to give this over to you—ALL the way this time. I give it over to you 100%. I have decided to go ahead and do what you want me to do. But you have to open those doors God, I don’t have the keys. I will wait, and listen for you.”

Then all of a sudden you notice doors open, windows open, gates open up wide. Some of these are doors you had not planned on walking through. It was not in your plan of your family, or your career plan, your business plan, or the church growth plan. But right and left you keep getting confirmation.

So you grab the hands of your family, or your business partner, or your Church leaders, and say, “If it’s God’s will…….” And you step forward.

If it is God’s will.

And it is certainly a struggle to not put your own will first. After all, we tend to think we know what is best for ourselves, our future. I want to trust God, but I want to do that on my terms....and I certainly do not want it to get uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable--- that is an understatement. Think of Christ on the cross. Uncomfortable? Even Christ, God the Son, prayed for God’s will to be done. And He knew precisely what was coming and how much He did NOT want to experience it. Yet He prayed for God’s will to be done.

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Luke 22:42

Kind of puts “our terms” into perspective, doesn’t it?

What it boils down to is trust. Do we trust the maker of the heavens and the earth? The omniscient, omnipotent Lord of all? Or do we trust our own fallible, sinful, flawed selves?
There is absolutely nothing in the world more comforting, satisfying, or rewarding, than the absolute certainty that what you’re doing or living is the will of God. So why is it so hard to let go of the control and allow God’s will to happen even if we don’t know what that will mean? Or, worse, we know what it will mean but don’t think we’ll like it much.

So it really is safe to pray for a mission trip to come up, and then have faith that no matter where it leads my son, God is right there with him. I don’t have to put clauses and addendums into my prayer request. I just come to Him in faith and trust. Not an easy thing for this mother to wrap her noodle around---which points out to me where my prayer requests need to lead to next!

2 Chorinthians 12:9 promises us that God’s grace is sufficient for us. And that’s really, all we need to know. If nothing else, we can cling to that as we walk together through that open door.
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD,And He delights in his way. Psalm 37:23