God won't ask....

Things God won't ask on THAT day:

1. God won't ask what kind of car you drove. He'll ask how many people you drove who didn't have transportation.

2. God won't ask the square footage of your house. He'll ask how many people you welcomed into your home.

3. God won't ask about the clothes you had in your closet. He'll ask how many you helped to clothe.

4. God won't ask what your highest salary was. He'll ask if you compromised your character to obtain it.

5. God won't ask what your job title was. He'll ask if you performed your job to the best of your ability.

6. God won't ask how many friends you had. He'll ask how many people to whom you were a friend.

7. God won't ask in what neighborhood you lived. He'll ask how you treated your neighbors.

8. God won't ask about the color of your skin. He'll ask about the content of your character.

Prayer of Relinquishment....from Guidepost

This is an article about prayer from Guidepost. It is a lot to take in. I, myself am going to print it out so I can read it over and over. Here is the site to find it. I know that as I try to embrace it, to grasp it, I will be blessed and I pray that you will, too.....debbie

http://www.ourprayer.org/prayer-of-relinquishment

Always beautiful to God as He looks at the heart....

God judges persons differently than humans do. Men and women look at the face; God looks at the heart. — 1 Samuel 16:7 MSG

It is so easy to believe that God is silent on the subject of beauty. Maybe it is because the church is silent, or maybe it’s because we have to be so still to hear what God is saying. Either way, so many women simply think God is not saying anything about how they feel about themselves. Here is the simple truth: God loves you passionately and intensely, and that love has nothing to do with the way you look. It isn’t affected one ounce by the size of your blue jeans or the way your nose slopes up or how much dental work you’ve had done. It isn’t lessened by wearing the wrong dress to a party or having no skill in applying makeup or by hating exercise. God simply loves you as you are.

But before we just gloss over that and go right on to the next thing, let me ask a hard question. Have you let that truth into your soul? I mean, really let it in? God is the one who has never criticized you or belittled you or made fun of your appearance in any way. He is the one who formed you, and said afterward, “This is good.”
— Nicole Johnson
Excerpted from A Grand New Day © 2008 by Thomas Nelson. Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

"I love Him", that's all there is to it!!!

Sharing my Angel "Song" ornaments with you that I am doing for the craft show. Please go to my other blog to see more creations. I am so excited for the craft show coming up in October. Took this picture and arranged it deliberately, because it says it all for me...."I love Him" and I want to do all things; creating, singing, sharing, working....all for Him!!!

Blessings this beautiful day in the Lord!!!

~debbie

The "Trees" are changing, and so do we....

Just as the trees are starting to turn and shed their leaves, I think something starts happening to us, too. We don't necessarily change colors and start shedding (thank goodness), but I think we start preparing inwardly and outwardly for the changing of the seasons. Oh, yes, of course, the putting away of the summer clothes, bringing out the flannel (my favorite material) and preparing the yards and the flower beds for a time of sleeping....inwardly, what do we do? Well, I sigh many times during these days.....things are dying all around me, it is a time that just has to be.....life has to die in order to be renewed and live again. God calls us to do this also, but He just doesn't call us to do this at the changing of the seasons....No, He wants us to daily die to self so that we can live for Him.

Another sigh.....it is an ok thing.....

Longing for the peaks as I stand here in the valley...

Still using the internet at the library.....next week should have it back again at home. Have enjoyed though seeing the pictures on this computer and the thoughts they bring.


Helped and attended a funeral this morning for a dear friend in our church. Al was 80 years young and though, as Darlene (Al's wife) and I were talking about how it was not his heart that took him from us after all these years of having trouble there....it was a fall and hitting his head and over a period of days just not feeling right. Al went peacefully from this earth and into a much better place, the home that was meant to be his all along. I myself am longing for "higher ground" and do not like the view much from the "valley" time. I will miss Al, especially tomorrow as we all had such fun in Sunday School discussing our lesson....oh, the thoughts and opinions we shared! I will miss the humbleness of Al, a man who was so honest about how he once lived and how the Lord saved him and how he so wanted others to have what he found. Didn't know that it was at Promise Keepers that he had found his way back to the Lord and attended a few more times and tried to get other men to come along. Everyone is so busy. Oh, to see all men experience Promise Keepers as we women experience our gatherings! Spiritual men of God can change the tide of this whole world!


Anyway....as I am down in my valley today and pondering the higher heights, I know the Lord wants me to make good use of where I am. It is hard but it is what He calls us to do. Live for the Lord where you are! I have the privilege of singing for a couple trying to raise money to take a mission trip to Haiti tomorrow.....my prayer is always that God speaks through me as well as the others performing and that people are willing to look ahead and up to that higher ground of where we are meant to be someday....."Al, you have one up on us, for the moment....." ~debbie

Going into the night, ending each day.....

I don't know about any of you, but I have a hard time when it comes to sleeping. Most of it is just turning the brain off. I take an over the counter "melatonin" to help slow things down. I got an e-mail about how one ends their day is as important as how one begins a new day! Thought we could all benefit from this. Computer is still down at home so am relying on the computer pictures available at the library. This is pretty, isn't it? Sometimes going to sleep is like "walking a long pier" for me!!! Blessings to you, deb

The way that you end your day is just as important as how you begin it. Here are some tips to help you have a better night and a better tomorrow.

1. Let go of your responsibilities at day’s end. Set your burdens aside and relax. Take time for happy moments with loved ones and friends. Be relaxed and jovial. Don’t carry the day’s work into the night. Let it rest while you rest.

2. Spend some time every evening with your Bible. Do it regularly. When this becomes a consistent, regular habit, it begins to take hold of your daily life, and it changes things. It will change you. Read a chapter or two a night until you have completed the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Then read Paul’s Epistles. Add to this a Psalm or some great Old Testament chapter such as Isaiah 55. As you do this, some wonderful insights will come to you, and you will feel so helped that you will have a new mastery of your problems.

3. Tell a few people that you love them. Telephone someone or write it in a letter. This will take you further out of yourself, and that, of course, will get you closer to other people.

4. Before you go to sleep, run over your life, thank God for everyone and everything. Count your blessings, name them “Lord, bless this conversation.”

5. Empty your mind of the day as if you were emptying your pockets. Remove all the the irritations, frustrations, disappointments, hurts and regrets then go to sleep with a cleansed and uncluttered mind.

6. Finally, commit your soul into the kindly care and keeping of the Lord, and then go to sleep in peace. He watches over you. Affirm “God watches over me, over my house, over all my loved ones. In His peace I have peace.”

Becoming a Butterfly is Work!!! Labor for His Glory!!!

My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. — Ecclesiastes 2:10 niv

I saw Anderson Cooper (of CNN) give an interview recently, and in it he responded to a question regarding the best advice his mother (Gloria Vanderbilt) ever gave him. He responded that she advised him to follow his bliss and the money would come. He had a dream to be a reporter and he now anchors each weeknight with his own news show. I don’t know what your “bliss” might be, but I urge you to find a calling in life and attach it to your work.

Whether you have a job and wish you didn’t, or don’t have one and wish you did, or if you wish you had different people to work with or report to, the dailyness of your workplace can become a mental drag if you don’t choose to see it as a place of purpose and mission. The Bible gives us clear principles regarding whatever labor we undertake. Read Colossians 3:23, Luke 9:62, Romans 13:1, Matthew 7:12.

These scriptural principles allow us to see that we are working for more than a paycheck, that we are committed to endurance and excellence in any undertaking, and that our Real Boss doesn’t inhabit the corner office, but has it all in his hands.
— Anita Renfroe
Excerpted from A Grand New Day © 2008 by Thomas Nelson. Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Used with permission. All rights reserved

Changes....

You can't miss the changes....it's part of life. You can't ignore it....it's gonna happen anyway! There are just things in this life that have to fall and die in order to birth anew something absolutely "out of this world"!!! Oh, what we have to look forward to in our Christian walk with Jesus! He asks us to be willing to die in order to really live!!! I am excited about that and I hope you are too! It takes a lot of trust and a lot of faith....and yet, that faith only has to be as small as a mustard seed.....you all know how small a mustard seed is!! Thank you, Father, for taking us as we are and seeing what we can be!!!

Blessings this day, a new day......debbie