Sequal to "Give Me Back My Dirt!"

Now you will know...."the rest of the story"!

Well the morning I posted "Give Me Back My Dirt!", the Lord was speaking to me along those lines after reading my Bible and hearing the children squabbling, so I posted what was on my heart, and thought piously, "Well I hope that's a blessing to someone!" Blogging about things that are on my heart is a way to get it out where I can see it and make more sense of it, so it helps me too. I was quite pleased with myself, until an hour later when (ominous drum roll please) my washing machine broke.

Would you believe that right after that precious message from the Lord, one little convenience appliance breaking, and I was all ready to throw a fit! At least I wanted desperately to. What does God have to do, whack me upside the head with a two by four?! He prepared me perfectly and always provides the strength in every situation. He has never let me down. Sometimes the things I am willing to get angry about astonishes me when I think about it from His point of view!

All we do is only by His grace, and I have only just begun the grace journey. I've got a long way to go folks! I'm so glad He put me here, and is so patient and gentle with me, understanding and faithful always.

Thanks to His preparation, I was able to stop and chose to laugh instead. I have a mountain of laundry, but we still have everything we need and then some. And God keeps bringing in the blessings! See previous post for that!

Heavenly Celebration!

Join in! For the first time today, Ryan was able to personally take someone in Spanish to the foot of the cross and see them saved! Glory Hallelujah!

Watch what you say!

My husband was witnessing to a man at his house, facing a parking lot that was on a hill. While he was speaking to the man, he heard this for off cry of "Car! Car!". He ignored it and continued to witness, and the man was saying, "I don't need God. I have my heart, I have my mind, I have my legs, I have my self, I don't need Him." At that moment, the yelling got louder, the man looked behind Ryan and his soul winning partner and jumped back. Ryan turned and jumped back just in time. A three year old had climbed into a car in the parking lot, locked the doors, and released the brake. The car slammed into the house with a crash. Amazingly, no-one was hurt, and nothing was harmed. The man just sat there staring as people gathered around got the child out of the car and comforted her and pulled the car away.

Pray for him, we think maybe God was trying to get his attention. What do you think?

New cheap way to travel!

My anti-clausterphobe at it again.

One historical day for us

Something happened not a full hour after my last post that is interesting and sure to make a great post, but I haven't had time to blog about it, and what happened today is some much more important, I cannot compare the two.

My husband preached his first sermon in Spanish today. Twice! A missionary who pastors two churches asked him to come, and we were in one church in the morning and the other in the evening. Ryan has been working on this sermon for a long time, writing every word, translating it and reading it aloud many, many times. I could tell the Lord was helping him, and God was truly working through us, limited though we are. In the morning service, a family; dad, mom, and teenage daughter all came forward. The pastor went to the front and led to the Lord right in front of everyone! What a beautiful thing to see! In the evening service, a young couple received Christ as their Saviour.

All I can say is; GLORIA DIOS!

GIVE ME BACK MY DIRT!!!!!

If I hear those words one more time....

I am peculiarly amused by the protectiveness of my kids over things that are completely worthless. They play on dirt, in dirt. There is enough dirt to go around for a hundred children. But they fight and war over the pound that they have in their hands. This is a testimony to the fact that children are foolish by nature.

I would never behave that way. Would I? How does God see my value system? Honestly, I think He shakes His head at me like I shake my head at my girls. Think about it--in heaven, the purest gold is the pavement. What do I value? What does God think about it?

2Co 4:6-7 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

God put His wonderful treasure into something He values far beyond gold or precious stones; His children!

Mat 6:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

So where is God's heart? You know, when I hear my kids fighting over worthless things, I am moved to correct their values. I think God wants me to value His truth, the gospel of salvation, and the precious souls of people more than I do, and value things, wealth, and comfort less than I do.

The treasure of my salvation is something I will always have, and cannot lose. Thank the Lord for saving you today, if He has. If you need to accept the gift of God, please don't cling to something in your life that is utterly worthless to pass up the priceless gift of salvation!

Jesus spoke to a rich man who had kept the law all his life. He was a "good"person, and he wanted to know how he could come to God. Jesus challenged him to give up all his possessions and follow Him, and the man went away sorrowing. What is in your life that you will not give up to accept Christ? Nothing is worth the loss of your soul! How it must grieve the Lord to see people refuse salvation for the vain things of the world like riches, position, or even family relationships. God gave the most precious Treasure He had to save you, His own Son. (And He owns all the treasure in the universe by right.) That was how much He treasures you. Don't pass the treasure He wants to give you!

AHA!

I found a place to help me with my technical ingnorance here. How cool is that? Now I feel like a real blogger. Now let's post this thing and see if it works!

A Day to Remember

I wanted to tell the story of our picture day. Every time we get our pics done it is a huge trial. I don't know why but the devil just fights it and this time was no exception. Of course, we had made the slightly insane decision to go to Chucky Cheese (codename, CC, or the "Charles and the Dairy product", or "Pizza Rat") to celebrate Rebecca's birthday (the previous Sunday) and finally let her open her presents.

Pictures first. We got out of the house at 11. The camera was broken at the Walmart photo dept. The girl gave us directions. Bad ones. We looked and looked for the other Walmart for a couple of hours, all the while trying to keep the increasing hungry and now sleepy children "picture" pretty. We finally found the Walmart, but couldn't get in before lunch because the kids were STARVING and there wasn't an opening until 3:30. (It was 2.)

in the car, Oh, and the kids took my foundation out of my makeup bag, so when I went to do my makeupAAAAGGGHHH!!!!! (I am ashamed to admit I threw a hissy fit and had to apologize.) We picked up some makeup at the Walmart after one of those conversations,
"You don't need makeup! You look fine!"
"Do you see this rosacia?!"
"What, your cheeks are rosy. It looks good!"
"No way! I look like a clown!" etc. (I'm glad my husband likes the look of my face, but I don't believe cameras do at all.)

Anyway, at CC, David chose to "shine" and he "shined" loudly The. Whole. Time. I took him out to the car to feed him. (Modesty was offensive to him for some reason that day.) Twice. Still not happy. Ryan took the girls around the fun stuff at cc while I bounced David and smiled apologetically at the other people trying to eat. The girls had a lot of fun. The only pizza spot on the clothes was on Ruth's skirt, and I turned it around backwards for the pictures so you can't tell.

Then we went in for the pics. We were late, but the lady there was great. The last Walmart photo person was definatley not "called". But this one took really good pictures, engaged the kids and even got Mr. Grumpage to stop grumping long enough for the picture.

After we left we were about halfway to the border when we got a cell phone call from the lady at the photo dept. "Did you leave your purse?"

Went back and got it. And got back. "One of those days" doesn't begin to describe it, but all in all, everything we set out to do got done. I am still trying to figure out how that happened.