Our angel Emerson!

Amazing life we have had during 2014! Another beach vacation just before she was born with my mom! Upon our return, we awaited Emerson's birth on June 27th! Shortly after we made the decision to resign from pastoring. Moved our belongings & began work with Barnes & Noble transfer to Vanderbilt warehouse. So much Change! 

She keeps us trying to be better people in our senior years! She makes our lives happy! She makes us appreciate the changes we have made! 

I am excited about the future! Looking forward to seeing the home God will bless us with soon! Appreciate the sharing of our daughter's family home! God knows what we need & my heart's desire! 

I need Jesus more than ever, every day! 

His Word is still my guide & my heartbeat! 

I will run after him but I will also sit quietly & wait for Him! 

Thank You God for our sweet Emmie! 

New Year 2014-Still the God of small things

Here it goes again! God help me and bless me for trying again! Myfitnesspal app worked for a month. Now I am journaling instead. Feels better to write & share in my physical book! List list making and marking it off upon completion. Works for me! Art journaling sounds fun and more feasible for me to achieve and isn't that the point to achieve?! All of the Christmas decorations are put away and calendar/journal set up and facing this new year with great anticipation!
Fasting & prayer and believing God for greater things still makes Him my God of small things!
God has always helped me regroup each year and this year I will begin reading the Bible through to completion more than 25 times! Every time I do I learn more about what He can do and what I must do!
Things I must do:
---Allow my hope to be only in Him!
---Trust the process!
---Wait for His work to be complete!
---Have faith!
What He must do:
---lead me
---love me
---forgive me
---never lie

I do love Him more than anything and the small things are still His to make into what He chooses!
Forgive, love and have faith all small but make Him huge in this world!

Be magnified!

Cleansing the Body

Amazing, this journey, we are all walking, running & skipping & sometimes crawling through this life. Mine was brought to a Selah (precious pause) last week when my blood pressure skyrocketed and must have been a forewarning of the extremity of my body under stress. I despise that word. What do I have to be stressed about? I know Jesus the way maker and I have a wonderful family yet at times the circumstances and situations that I cannot change overwhelms me. Now I know I must detox & check the diet & exercise. I usually do this through a set time of fasting & prayer pretty regularly but I knew I needed to step it up at the 50+ aging process continues. Not that I will not still be fasting & praying but need to bump it up a notch. 

Life really does throw us curve balls and the journey continues to provide a variety of game changers with each pitch whether I am ready or not...rarely am I prepared for each pitch just like as a child when I played backyard or front, baseball! I was never ready because I was not that good a hitter and my 3 brothers were practicing for perfection on me and which our friends & neighbor kids would join us! It was still fun and we did our best & ran the bases and called it FUN! The journey is fast paced and filled with unwanted kinks, ups & downs and poor pitches but the point we must remember is to shake it off and move forward, better for the trouble and assured that it WAS worth it! I journey on.

Last Thursday I began using an iPhone app myfitnesspal and I heard about it in November from my friend and ministry friend Yvonne Rimmer who said using it helped her lose unwanted 25 pounds! I congratulated her on the health improvement and said to my dear friend that I was not able to keep up with it! (Though food diaries have helped me in the past!) She willingly shared her progress & app favorites and how she used it and still I was not ready. Until the extreme blood pressure incident!  

I really felt bad with headaches and pains in back for a few weeks between Thanksgiving and this past week when EBP happened. After our successful Children's Revival with several children & adults receiving a deep moving of Gods Spirit and 7 new Holy Ghost in fillings for precious people I should have felt great inside & out! I did! But something had to change when symptoms were indicating a deeper problem physically. So, here I go day 4 of using the app myfitnesspal and no I am not perfect in its use yet, but I am using it! This journey now includes my food diary which bears the evidence that I am eating more that the recommended 1500 calories to reach my good healthy goal weight. I take great comfort in knowing that not being perfect keeps me in good company with others who struggle to maintain a healthy goal weight! 

I have always been a lover of all things natural, organic & close to nature as possible! So, I use baking soda to wash my hair each time and a sulfate free conditioner which keeps my hair full of body and no chemicals included! I have done so for nearly 2 years! I have been making my own laundry detergent for nearly as long & all natural cleaners mostly to save dollars but also to be chemical free! ( I have yet to convince my daughter & husband to join me in my love of organically but they accept this part of my journey & I don't push! Their journey is theirs! )

I have tried many things "all organic" over the years but yesterday added oil pulling to aid in whitening my teeth & detox of the body. It was kind of gagging the first day because I was doing it while showering which nearly drowned me! Today was day 2, I decided it was best to try it while doing morning devotions and before eating. Much better result! I live & learn each day! I made homemade toothpaste today as detoxing with oil pulling must be rinsed with being sure to remove the toxins the oil pulls through the mouth and spit out in the trash! I used olive oil 1 tablespoon held in my mouth closed for 20 minutes. I am happy I started this! The sensitive toothpaste I was using just did not help my dental issues. I am excited to see what this decision changes in my good health. The challenges of my journey to better health will not be easy but should simply my life! Ease of stress and confident that He who has started this work in me is able to perform or complete it! I trust Him! 

Amazing life I am blessed to Embrace

Today marks a unique milestone in our family! Our baby girl ventures out into this great big world to get her 1st job and it happens to be at the State College she plans to attend in a few weeks! We are blessed to have her at home still and attending college locally. Benefits that are  special to us and we are grateful! 

We returned on Monday from a 5 day beach  vacation from which we rested and recuperated from the busy life we lead! Family time is ultra important in this everyday life! 

Things I learned while on said vacation..

never take anything for granted

always be grateful for family & friends and 

I am not required to control circumstances, or others, but I am ALWAYS required to control myself. Quote by @rachelcoltharp

Learning still that I cannot control anything or anyone but me! 

In order to find true happiness I must do my part to change me! My situation may not change but my response to it can and must! 

Long walks everyday on the beach with no noise or clamor but the nature of the precious Atlantic ocean and flocks of sea birds tweeting and calling out to their maker and no cell phone ministered to me in ways only God knew was needed! I should have taken photos of the jellyfish lying beached on the seacoast or pelican dipping down nearby for their meal of fish or ocean life but no! This was not my destiny! 

My Lord spoke through the sweet nature of ocean life to let me know I need to prepare my heart for a "make a room/place for His holy presence to dwell again in peace! My confusion was replaced with defining purpose of strength and power to change my reaction to my circumstance! 

I will! I can! I must! 

I should have recorded the ocean waves beating against my feet as they walked but I did not! I remember now and I pray I always remember! My God speaks through the nature he created just as much as he calls my name in desire to spend time communing with me! 

Table of Inwardness-by Calvin Miller still speaks to me! 

I remember! 

I am blessed! 

Baby girl must find her own way! 

I found mine! 

Please lead her dear Lord, to your peace in her search for her own place in this life & to remember this life is not forever so we must make it count for Christ! 

We are so blessed! 

New Year 2013

It seems impossible and yet time marches on, 2013 arrived with many new things as we ushered 2012 out the back door! Changes have always been 2-fold for me, love to clean & change but with order comes a cleansing that is sometimes difficult, in that I must let go! Moving to new houses & making them homes has been an adventure! I lived in a USAF home and we moved regularly and that aids my adventurous spirit! My children have not adjusted as well and that is regrettable. Change is a vital part of our very existence. In order to be well-adjusted you have to be willing to roll with the punches! Not so easy with my eldest children? Sometimes not with me youngest child either!
My scripture reading for today was in Genesis concerning Abram and his call to leave his comfortable home & go to a land he did not know anything about. I am reminded of this each time we pack up and move. No, it is never an easy task, yet a necessary one if we intend to follow the calling of our great God! We are never really at home in this world because our eternal home is impossible to compare to any in this world. Still, I desire to make my family peaceful and happy in ours, wherever it may be on this earth. Obedience was the simple lesson taught to me by Abram's account. Abram followed God with all of his earthly riches and I cannot imagine the convoy following him! Yes! He took it all! He did not know what would be waiting for him in provisions and he was used to his comfortable surroundings! Nomad? Maybe. Rich? He was still. Obedient? Oh, yes! He left one home and took it all with him and gained a new home where God gave him so much more! New promised child and lessons along the way! Teach me Lord, to follow you and allow you to take what I have and blend it with your provisions to create the path to follow obediently in the home you have prepared for me! Make a difference in sharing what I have with everyone and be obedient when you say "GO!"
This year marks the baby girl's graduation from High school. Two married children in their new families. Losses & gains are all a vital part of the circle of life! May the changes you bring into our lives make us stronger & more dependent on you, our great God! Lead us in the way everlasting! May your Word continue to bring light & hope in this dark world! Opportunities to come that help us be SALT to our circle of influence. Show us where to go. Help us to follow!

Time stops for no one

Life is filled with swift transitions...the song goes! Changes come whether we enjoy them or not! I started blogging a few years ago then trailed off a couple of times! 2011 is about ending and I am committing to blog more frequently in 2012. We shall see! I deleted the Wordpress account because they were asking to pay a fee now! I hate change! So free is still my choice! Time marches on!