Friday, January 30, 2015

The Light shines on...


This world is getting darker and scarier.
This may make me sound like an old lady, but it's just not the same place I grew up in.
Moral absolutes have been thrown out the window, along with good old common sense.
The horrors that mankind does to each other gets worse and worse.
It's all too easy to give into fear, get overwhelmed and give into hopelessness.
But when God says never, He means NEVER.
The darkness has never overpowered the Light.
God is still at work in this world.
He is still at work in and through His people.
The darkness can never, will never, extinguish the Light of God.
If you are in a dark situation or just overwhelmed at the darkness of our world in general,
turn towards the Light.
Jesus is the Light of the world.
When God says always, He means ALWAYS.
Be encouraged, friends.

still following,






Scripture and Snapshot


SUNDAY STILLNESS


Also happily linking up with the lovely Lisha Epperson.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Friday Faves...a pre-Valentine treat for you!


Unless you're a blogger, you may not really understand the friendships
 that you can make with other kindred spirits you "meet" online via blogging.
Some of my online friends have become in real life friends, 
and some I've never met in person, yet we bear one another's burdens in prayer and share each other's joys.
Years ago people used to become pen pals without knowing each other face to face.
This isn't much different, except we're blog pals instead of pen pals.
(I know we need to have common sense and caution 
and that people can invent online personas that aren't them at all.)
Anyway,  to all my blog friends and readers, here's a little pre-Valentine surprise for you.  
Some free Valentine downloads!
These are made to be printed to fit an 8x10 frame.
-cut a piece of card stock or watercoloring paper to printer paper size 8 1/2x11
 ( I like to use watercoloring paper because it has some texture to it.)
-click on image you want to print to download it 
-print image
-using the glass from your 8x10 frame center the image under the glass and lightly trace around it,
then cut image to size, place in your frame and voila!




You can also resize these images to fit into a smaller frame or to use as actual Valentines.





Enjoy!

Well, it's almost Friday!
Have a
HAPPY, HAPPY Friday
and 
a safe and BLESSED weekend!
         1aaadoveladygfairy006    

TidyMomShabby Art Boutique






Wednesday, January 28, 2015

When you let Jesus be the boss in the nitty gritty of your life...




You'd think I'd learn.  After all, for years in working with children I've explained in simple words that they can understand that making Jesus Lord means that you ask Him to be the boss of your life.  The thing is, asking Jesus to be Lord of my life in general, doesn't seem to be that hard.  I want Him to be the boss of my life, to guide me in the life's big or difficult decisions.  However, it's in the nitty gritty everyday things, that I find myself wanting to run my own show.  When I was a girl, the girls' club at church had as part of it's motto, "to be faithful stewards of time, money and talent."  It's that first one that I like to be in control of.  I like to be the boss of my time.  I'm a people person with introvert tendencies. I feel most comfortable when a day has "margin" in it.  If a day is too jam packed with activity I start to feel anxious inside.  While I like to be the boss of my time,  I've learned the hard way that my days go much better when I relinquish the controls of my time to the One I call Lord.  On days that I have a list of things to-do or one that is filled with appointments it is especially crucial that I start the day asking Him to take charge.  

But, I don't always do it!  I don't always put time with the Lord and in His Word first.  I don't always look at that day's to do list, that day's appointments on the calendar, and relinquish it all to God and ask Him to order my day.  When I don't,  the day just never seems to go right.  When I do, even a day filled with interruptions seems to work out.

This morning I looked at my scribbled list of things that absolutely, positively needed done today.  There were also some things I hoped to get done.  I actually did start the day by spending time with God and reading the Bible as well as asking Him to help me and  to order my day. Like I said, some days I'm not that smart.  Mid-devotions, my daughter called about a change in her schedule that  meant I didn't need to watch my grandson for her.  While I absolutely love having him and knew I would miss having my time with him, I also knew that God was helping clear the way for me to do some of the things on my list that I would rather have had an excuse to avoid.  Things like checkbook balancing, bill paying and some work that involved looking up some records, making some copies, and mailing some correspondence.  Undistracted,  I was accomplishing a lot and  the day was humming along smoothly. Then my husband called,  interrupting my work with his phone call, and said that he had accidentally locked the keys in his car and that I would eventually need to come to the church with his spare car key.  That doesn't sound like a big deal, except we live a half hour drive from the church and once the big items on the to-do list were done I had planned to go running and write my blog post and...I felt myself start to get frustrated that my plans were getting messed up.

I finished up most of the items on my list and was on the way home from making copies and mailing my correspondence when I had an idea, or maybe the Boss of my life gave me an idea.  I called the hubs and told him I had a few more things to finish at home, but suggested I come right after that and instead of running in my neighborhood we could both run/walk by the river before heading home.  So that's what we planned to do.  As I was leaving the house, I decided to bring my camera along, just in case.  

When I gave the husband the spare key to his car, his keys to the car, house, church, everything, were not in his coat pocket in the car as he had thought.    Again, I found myself starting to get frustrated, because it was getting later , and we still needed to find his keys, go on our run, and I still had dinner to fix once we got home.  A half hour after looking everywhere he thought the keys might be, he found them in the car wedged under the floor mat and we were finally able to head down to the path by the river.  That is how God, the boss of my life, arranged it for me to capture this beautiful sunset.








But that isn't the end of what He was up to.  When I got home I started fixing dinner.  By now, God had gotten through to me because I could see what a great job He had done being in charge of my day.  The fact that dinner was going to be later than normal wasn't really bothering me.  I was just about to plate it up when there was a knock on the door.  My husband and I weren't expecting anyone, but there on our porch was one of the sweet young single mamas from church and her little boy.  Some months ago she had moved to the southern part of the state and was up in the area visiting family and decided to stop by and see us on her way home.   So, because we were just about to sit down to eat when she arrived, she and her little guy were able to join us for dinner.  Then, as she was about to leave she mentioned that she had forgotten her car phone charger somewhere and still had hours to drive in the dark with an almost dead phone. Concerned for her safety, my husband was able to give her an old phone charger of his.  

The moral of the story?  Sometimes, when you let Jesus be the boss of the nitty gritty of your life, He works things out for your good and for the good of the people around you, too.

Still following,
   



Darling Downs Diaries

USE this for BLOG


at 3-D Lessons for Life

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Anthropologie finds at Goodwill!




Today, while running other errands, I stopped in at two Goodwill stores on a mission to find more milk glass vases for my daughter's upcoming wedding.
We have about 30 so far, but since each table will have a grouping of vases, we still need quite a few.


Not everyone realizes that some stores donate brand new items to the Goodwill,
sometimes the packaging is just damaged and sometimes the item itself is damaged,
but sometimes there seems to be no apparent reason.
I often see items from Target, and on rare days from Anthropologie.


Today was one of those wonderful rare days!
While I didn't score any milk glass vases today,
I did score three brand new Anthropologie cups.
There were still a lot more new Anthro cups left behind for someone else to buy in this particular Goodwill.
I forgot to take a photo of the telltale Anthro bird logo on the bottom of the cups.


 This gold K Anthropologie mug happens to be my soon-to-be-married daughter's initial,
so I bought it for her.
The gold cups come out at Anthro at Christmastime.




I love this Anthropologie cup's fancy painted interior.
While I certainly don't need more cups, 
 I couldn't pass up buying three Anthro cups for less money than one cup is in the regular store.
(I did have to cull out some lesser loved cups in my cupboard in order to welcome these newcomers, though.)


I do love cute cups, so this was a fun little treat! 

still following,




Also linking to All Things Heart and Home

         1aaadoveladygfairy006    

TidyMomShabby Art Boutique