Handmade Gifts

...everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

My best shot this year at whimsical, handmade Christmas gifts.

What about you? Would you rather receive a gift with all its imperfections made with hands or do you prefer the store bought sure-fire type?

Man-Made Christmas

...everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

It's been an interesting Christmas season for me this year. My usual mode is to get intensely involved in the hustle and bustle this holiday seems to demand. It calls for so many activities out of the ordinary. It's not like all the other regular-life things stop and we can just 'do' Christmas.

No matter how I try I never can seem to get started with all the planning, decorating, shopping, baking, wrapping until after Thanksgiving. When I think about how long I've been at this routine one would think it would get easier and I would get better at it.

If I cut myself some slack I'd probably say I have gotten a little better at managing the Christmas to-do's without stressing myself out 24/7 for 3 weeks straight. Admittedly, I had a crying melt-down the first week of December from the pressure I put on myself. Mike listened and as usual nothing he reasoned could console my feelings of "I'm never going to get it all done."

After that meltdown (that I swore would not happen this year no.matter.what.) I came full circle~~ back around to "why" we celebrate. I don't know about you but my detailed and sort-of compulsive personality always tends to make more out of just about any situation than the average human being. So even though, of course I 'know' why we celebrate, I easily get caught off guard and caught up in the stress of it all rather than the joy of it all.

Man has created a "season" that actually can distract us from the very thing we are to be celebrating.

I love Christmastime and all that goes along with it. Family, friends, lights, sparkles, music, ribbons, bows, trees, cookies, shopping, entertainment, children's programs and on and on it goes... but not at the expense of peace in my soul.

I must have peace. That, for me, requires a good look in the face of Jesus and His love and mercy washing over me in generous doses as the reality of His kindness and redemption for not only me but the entire world puts everything back into perspective.

Oswald Chambers put it so well I won't bother to re-create words that describe what happens when I carry that kind of peace around with me.

Every time you get into personal contact with Jesus, His words are real. "My peace I give unto you," it is a peace all over from the crown of the head to the sole of the feet, an irrepressible confidence. "Your life is hid with Christ in God," and the imperturbable peace of Jesus Christ is imparted to you. Oswald Chambers

Don't you just love that word "imperturbable"? THAT is the kind of peace I wish for every reader. There is no amount of money that can purchase it. It is one thing you can't buy for Christmas. There is only one way to find it.

And have yourself ... a Merry Christmas!

Me and Bing

...everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Call me crazy. Call me weird.

I play my Christmas music practically non-stop from the moment we wrap up Thanksgiving. I look forward to setting my i-pod to shuffle mode and Christmas genre, plugging it in to speakers, cranking it up and ... oh, that's right I mistakenly erased my entire i-pod recently when attempting to restore it. That was because my computer crashed over a year ago and I lost my entire i-tunes library. But this is way off subject.

Well, not totally. Because of that little mishap I'm having to resort to the use of my get this... stereo with surround sound speakers. So passé. So yesterday. Really. But it does have a 5 CD changer so that's convenient. I set the listening mode to random and it automatically skips around from song to song and CD to CD. Thank goodness I still have lots of those old standbys called CD's. Because I also lost all my purchased music from i-tunes when my computer crashed and I didn't have it backed up. Oh, there I go again. WAAAA!

Anyway, speaking of old-fashioned I love Bing Crosby. My favorite Christmas movie is White Christmas. And I adore listening to his old-timey crooning voice sing Christmas carols. I love his talking voice, too. So soothing. So gay... in a good sort of gay-way. I know, we don't use that word anymore but thought I could get by with it while I'm showing my age.

Back to pin-pointing my weirdness. This year everytime I hear him singing or talking (yes, he talks on one of my Christmas albums ~ not much but you get the idea) it gives me a little pang of sadness. It makes me sad because hearing his voice represents all that is right and free and good about America to me. I don't why but it does. The America we know and love. The America built on hard work and perserverance. An America that loved God and our fellow man and individual liberties.

It seems our America~ the America we know and love ~ is slipping away daily under this current Administration and Bing would not believe it if he were here to sing for us today. Who knew hearing Bing's voice sing Christmas carols would remind me of that.

See what I mean... call me crazy. Go ahead. I can take it.

Speaking of Gifts

...everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

"We have to realize that we cannot earn or win anything from God; we must either receive it as a gift or do without it." Chambers

Just for fun this morning I opened My Utmost For His Highest on the appropriate date. Usually I'm all over the place with it.

It happens to be my birthday. What a blessed reminder gift it was to read those words this early morning.

So because I don't want to do without every provision my Lord sacrificed His life for me to have... today I'm remembering all day long ...

"being justified freely by His grace..." Rom 3: 24
(and that's not talking about calories, peeps!)

Homebody

...everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

At my very core that's me. A homebody. There is no place on earth I'd rather be than at home. There is no place on earth that gives me more contentment than being at home taking care of whatever the day calls for at the time. Whatever that happens to be I have always felt like making my house a home for my family and being there to manage it is my highest calling.

When I got married over 31 years ago my husband had custody of his two children from a previous marriage. We had our only child together that first year. Just like that! I was a (very) young mom of three children. Even though I was working a full time job until two weeks before our son was born, it was in my heart not to go back to work. I was as happy as a clam to be at home running children all over the kingdom to their schools and various activities, keeping up with the house and my husband.

My own schedule, my own timing, my own projects, my own agenda, my own volunteering, my own life basically. We homeschooled two of our children for many years and then when the youngest went to college I moved from volunteering at a local crisis pregnancy center that was near and dear to my heart for many years to actually "working" there on staff.

After ten years there I decided to give into my happy place again and left there to be home again. This past two years has given me time to re-group, to center my soul around the things I love most, to be available to my family if/when they need me, to develop my gardens, and best of all to come and go as I please. Spoiled some would say, but it is, to this moment, what I love best.

I would be happiest and perfectly satisfied with staying at home for the rest of my days. But ... along with launching my own business this past spring and forming a garden coaching limited liability corporation I've recently gone to work fpart-time for a local garden nursery. One that I have spent plenty of dollars and time in prior to asking if they hire part-time employees. So far it is proving beneficial in all the ways I thought it might.

It's helping me learn more and more about plants and trees that I am not necessarily familiar with. I'm gaining all kinds of information about what it takes to run a retail nursery. (You know, just in case I might think I want to have one of my own some day). And I'm building up physical strength with the type of work that is involved.

My hope is to build my garden coaching business more when the spring season rolls around. In the meantime I'm trusting God to give me what it takes to make this work and hopefully, along with helping out in the down economy, I will learn plenty and be a benefit to my employer.

Finding the Medium

...everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Sooooo, I haven't been too diligent here have I? And I'm so sure allllllllllll my thousands of readers are sitting around with baited breath wondering when will the next post show up. LOL

Truth is, when I got it in my heart to start this blog the motivation was largely so I would have a place where words could flow as easily as they do from my heart. The reality is that 'writing' what's in my heart requires much more thought and organization than all the jumbled up thoughts that run through my head. At the time, there were so many things I thought I wanted to say. You know, blurbs and blips and nitty-gritty things about what goes on in everyday life along with spiritual insights and thoughts I gain along the way. But when it comes down to it I don't think letting it all hang out is really me. Not in this type of forum anyway.

One on one, looking into eyes and faces, I like nothing better than a deep conversation about anything and everything. Spending time with friends, family and those in need who like to share and dig down for answers and truths is most enriching and rewarding. I would say I'm an open-book in those situations.

I'm pretty sure that has something to do with building trust, faithfulness, and loyalty. I don't do that with just anyone.

With the blog I wrote with my kids prior to "Priceless Gain" I felt I had to guard some of the personal things I probably would have said had it not been a shared blog. After all, so many of my personal thoughts and emotions involve my children. Even though they are each grown and independent from us, my heart and life still revolves very much around them, their children, their ups and downs, our times together and my emotions concerning them. If you're a mom you know how that is. I wouldn't ever want to throw any of them under the bus or exalt one over the other either. Therein lies the rub. How much do I say and how much not to say. And then how much will others "read into" what I DO share. Just trying to find the balance now.

Blogging is interesting to say the least. It's amazing how many blogs there are and how diverse the subjects contained therein. Just goes to show we all want to have a voice. For some reason blogging makes us think we are being heard. It is definitely an outlet for creativity and expression of all sorts.

Initially I thought I wanted to make this a private blog. That just means the reader would have to sign in each visit. People are in such a hurry these days, I decided against that at the last minute.

What about you? If you have a blog how do you decide what kinds of personal things to share? If you like to read blogs what is it you look for in a blog to keep you reading?

O Death Where Is Your Sting?

...everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Attended the memorial service of a friend's husband today. He was only 53. I've been following her journal of the series of treatments he was receiving over the past 4 years for the cancer that first started on his tongue. Eventually he lost his tongue and part of his throat. The doctors never could determine why this type of cancer started with him as he was never a smoker.

Anyway, the memorial service was truly a beautiful tribute to a man who served God faithfully. Still, it saddens me he was taken out so early by such a horrific disease.

Since he passed away this week, it has caused me to be to slip into that deeply reflective mode I find myself in when these kinds of things happen. So many thoughts of what is really important in life and reminders of how very short our time here on earth really is.

Bob was a man of integrity and a lover of God. He will be missed by his family and so many wonderful friends... until we see him again on the other side ... forever in heaven.

But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory.
"O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?" ...but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
I Corinthians 15: 54-57

Not My Favorite Day

...everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Halloween has always been my least favorite celebration. Actually we never have acknowledged it in our home. Not since we made Jesus our Lord at least.

My views and principles about participating in a holiday that promotes mostly wickedness and evil changed and just didn't sit right in my heart. And it still doesn't. It doesn't really matter to me how it's packaged in fun and games. At the center of it fear and evil is promoted and I keep close guard on that in every other way. Why would I open myself to it on this one supposedly innocent holiday?

In modern times there seems to be a new obsession with any other worldly which only exacerbates the evil side of the day. I realize this is not the most popular view even among Christians these days. That's okay. I've never won any of those popularity contest anyway. And I don't condemn you if you decide to celebrate it. I wish I understood why but I don't condemn.

To minimize the acknowledgement of the day, rather than join in, we either went to church festivals or once our kiddos were older we took them out to eat so we could stick together and concentrate on family.

The evil characters have gotten much worse since my kiddos were growing up. The billboards, the advertisements on TV, the overly exaggerated gory displays in the local stores are really very annoying an often offensive.

Adults seem to have hijacked the day, too. As if they wait for Halloween to have their own ridiculous bashes and lewd parades. I say to them if they like to dress up in costumes they don't need an excuse like Halloween that taints the day even further. Have a masquerade party any other time of year. It's really okay to have your own party without using your kids as an excuse.

I LOVE this time of year and all the 'good' changes it DOES celebrate like the weather (still waiting on that one here in Florida), the colors represented with this season, sweaters and scarves, visions of harvest and Thanksgiving is right around the corner.

Getting past Halloween and all the reminders of it everywhere is something I look forward to.

Minding My Mind

...everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

As a follower of Jesus Christ I’m so curious these days about the standard used to decide our values and conduct. It seems, to me anyway, a culture of thought has crept into the church (I use this term to describe the entire body of believers) which allows for just about any kind of thinking (opinions) and activity that each believer ‘feels’ is right. I’m probably not even articulating this exactly like I wish I could. But talking to so many believers I know, and have known over the years, the overwhelming impression I get is one of conformity to the world rather than a noticeable variance in our attitude, conduct, activity, etc.

We are apt to forget that a man is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation; he is committed to Jesus Christ's view of God, of the world, of sin and of the devil, and this will mean that he must recognize the responsibility of being transformed by the renewing of his mind. Oswald Chambers

I often wonder, since Jesus told us He could do nothing of Himself and He only did what He heard from His Father how it is that I (we) think I (we) can have so many opinions about what is okay and not okay for how I (we) think and therefore live.

No matter what I think or you think is right or wrong in God’s eyes the Bible is exceedingly clear that as believers we are to be transformed (change something dramatically) so we can know what God wants us to do. It is our responsibility to renew (to get a new supply of something) our own minds and discipline ourselves to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Where have we gotten so far off of this basic and simple truth? Is it just me or is the New Testament not perfectly clear about this? Not really too much open to interpretation on the subject of renewing our minds to the point that what we think and do is very different from those who have not yet found our Lord as their Master.

Transformed: to change somebody or something dramatically, especially improving their usefulness; to undergo change completely for the better.

As a side note: I’ll share more later about the fact that these admonitions from the Bible were not meant to become a legalistic way of living that shuts the world out of our lives. Quite the opposite actually.

Is Marriage a Divine Conspiracy?

...everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
I was on the phone with a dear friend the other day involved in an encouragement fest. We do this easily as we think alike on so many levels Biblically. Our personalities are not necessarily alike but our hearts are intertwined when it comes to spiritual things. We were kind of bemoaning the lack of sheer resolve so many people seem to have lost in the generations that follow us... and ours, too actually. Somehow that line of thinking turned to the subject of marriage... you know ... marriage in general. But specifically how it seems everyone we know is married to someone who is completely opposite from each other... in personality and motivation.
She shared a recent John Eldredge newsletter (which is actually an excerpt from his latest book entitled Love and War) with me. So relevant are the words in light of what I see going on in Believer's lives everywhere. Here it is in part. Decide for yourself.


Blue highlights~ my thoughts added.
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Just this morning Stasi and I were talking about marriages we know, and we came to a pretty sobering realization ~~ we can't name one marriage that hasn't been through deep waters in the last three years. Not one. And we know a lot of people, and a lot of marriages. You'd think we'd be able to point to some couple who is trouble free. We can't find one. Not one. Every single marriage we know is either currently struggling, or they've just passed through some major struggle, or they've thrown in the towel. What's with that?

... maybe there's something about marriage, something inherent to it, that we'd all do well to go ahead and admit, face head-on, come to terms with. Marriage is fabulously hard.

Everybody who's been married knows this.

... the sirens that lure us into marriage ~ romance, love, passion, sex, longing, companionship ~ they seem so far from the actual reality of married life we fear we've made a colossal mistake, caught the wrong bus, missed our flight. And so the hardness also comes as something of an embarrassment (don't you feel embarrassed to admit how hard your marriage is?). Maybe it's just us.

Nope. This is everyone. We might as well come out and say it.
In the Christian world I think everyone will admit this ~ we just don't like to talk about it.
... Of course marriage is hard. For heaven's sake, bring together a man and a woman~ two creatures who think, act and feel so differently you'd think they'd come from separate solar systems ~ and ask them to get along for the rest of their lives under the same roof. That's like taking Cinderella and Huck Finn, tossing them in a submarine and closing the hatch. What did you think would happen?

When it comes to high-level expeditions, one piece of advice that veterans unanimously urge is this: "Choose your tent mate carefully." For you are going to spend weeks to months on end shut-in by foul weather in the forced intimacy of a tiny fabric cocoon with this person. By the time it's over everything about them will drive you mad~ the way they eat, the way they breathe, the way they hum show tunes or pick their nails. To keep yourselves from a Donnor party ending, you must start with people you are utterly compatible with.
This made me chuckle. A fact too difficult for our single friends who are just longing for romance, and companionship to imagine.
God does the opposite ~~ he puts us with our opposite. Our mutual brokenness plays off of each other so perfectly it's frightening. It's like throwing a dog and a cat in a dryer. Is He absolutely mad? Why would God do such a thing?

... He lures us into marriage and then he uses it to transform us.
And wait until you have children... either you transform or you kill them.
We all have a style of relating, we have a way that we do life. Our carefully crafted approach colors the way we work, the way we love, the way we handle stress and the way we look for life. Our style is borne out of brokenness and sin, and it is the number one thing that gets in the way of real love and companionship, the shared adventure and all the beauty of marriage. It's really this simple ~ the number one thing that gets in the way is your way. And we have absolutely no intention of giving it up. Not even to love. So God creates an environment where we have to. It's called marriage.
I just need/want to be happy. Really?
Now listen carefully ~ God wants us to be happy. He really does. He simply knows that until we deal with our brokenness, our sin, and our style of relating, we aren't going to be happy. Nobody around is going to be very happy, either. Most of what you've been experiencing in the last twelve months is God's attempt to get you to face your style of relating, and repent of it.
That didn't feel very good... nor did it make me very happy.
Can we just get to the answers here!
... understanding that happiness is the fruit of other things, chief among them our own holiness, and so we must undergo a transformation.
That's not exactly what I wanted to hear.
... we must share in God's holiness before the story is finished. This flies in the face of the more popular view of the world that's crept in recently ~ the happiness view. This is the idea that frames most people's expectations of marriage (and everything else) ~ the view that we're here for our happiness and so you'd better make me happy. It comes as quite a disruption when we begin to realize that God might have other things in mind!

But once we accept the plot ~~ our transformation ~~ then we can get on with cooperating with God, and that opens the door to all sorts of good things.
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That's a good word.
In this world of "it's all about me" it really is all about me. It's just not all about me in the self-centered way we tend to demand.
I am not my own... I've been bought with a price. Laying down my own rights to even my happiness is a step in the right direction.
Lots more to say but this is a post and I've gone too long... more later I'm sure... I can feel it.
What about you? Do you have the dream marriage we all wish we had? Or have you had to make lots of adjustments? If you aren't married, do you have big ideas about the way the right guy or gal is going to fulfill your fairy tale dreams?

A Good Starting Place

...everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Folks seem to be consistently perplexed about what the will of God is for their lives. The will of God… volumes of books have been written on how to know the will of God.

Believers tend to make things complicated. Hearing from God one way or another is the age old excuse for the good things and the wrong things we do. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard the phrase, “God told me such and such ” I’d own that place on the beach I dream of. I wonder how many times God actually told us or we just decided on our own it was what seemed best. Not pointing fingers… I’m including myself here.

There are some passages in the Bible that flat out tell us what IS the will of God. No guessing. No praying. No trying to make it fit with our philosophy or theology. No twisting or turning or distorting can make it say what we wish it did. Just plain and simple instructions. If we applied what we DO KNOW the Bible says about God’s will first, and lived it out, the will of God wouldn’t be such a mystery to so many folks. [It’s good to remind yourself that if you are a child of God, you are precious to Him and He is not withholding anything of Himself to those who know Him. ]

For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality (or sexual vice~ in another translation); that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the heathen who do not know God. I Thess. 4:3-5

One translation says, “Stay away from all sexual sin then each of you will control/manage his own body and live in holiness and honor”.

Sanctification… it’s a good starting place. We don’t hear much about it these days. It’s certainly not what itching ears want to hear. It means we separate ourselves UNTO God and we allow the holiness of Him to make us holy. In another place He says, “Be holy as I am holy”. Those words tell me it is possible for me to BE holy and LIVE holy.

I wonder if some of the music we listen to would fit with this admonition. If the music we listen to and the movies/TV we watch promote sexual sin do we think it helps us in our sanctification to let it in our ears and eyes?

Oh, that thinking is ‘SO yesterday’!

Wow, what if we just made that one adjustment. What if we actually learned how to possess our own vessel (body) in sanctification and honor! What if we just wanted to do God’s will at any cost to our flesh? What if that was more important to us than what anyone else thinks of us?

I’m asking myself these questions. What about you?