What!

Strange times in Arizona today.

The only road between Flagstaff and Page (between the Grand Canyon and Lake Powell) fell down the hill. Oopsie ADOT! (they left a comment once when I talked about them on my blog....I know this road collapse not really their fault--pun?--I am just baiting for comments)

And it snowed in Phoenix! Well...we are saying it snowed. It looks like snow. The weatherman said it's not actually snow. It's graupel. Uuuuuh.....okay. I think some weather people are spoil sports! So did the news anchor. After the weather report, he said they were not going to say the word graupel again.

I agree! Although now all the songs with the word snow in them are going through my mind with the word graupel in them. I don't think it will catch on.

Merging

We had our small group here tonight. It's always a good time of meshing lives with each other. But tonight our former members who had to drop out for a while came back. They actually hijacked the night we meet and then informed us. They really wanted to be in the group again. So it's all worked out for Tuesdays and it was great to be together again.

Bruce told us he wants everyone to have their testimony ready to share at some point in the next few meetings. So that was the topic in the kitchen.  I got to hear my friend Donna's amazing testimony of how God has brought her through the past 15 years. I know God is always working, but when someone tells me the story of their faith journey it amazes me to hear how He has worked in their lives. How things connect up to show us His will, how He spoke to them or how His care was in the details of each event that happened. God's working is so personal and specific to each person. Always a unique story, always such a creative work.

And it's not about them and what a strong person they are to have gone through all they did. It's about God and how He's brought us through, so faithful to us all the way. Tonight I was amazed once again to hear this friend's story. I've known her for 6 years now, but have never heard all of her story. Why don't we make the time for that...

I'm so glad that's what small group is all about!

Crabby Abbey

Just finished watching the finale of season 3. This is the only way to make sense of it.

pfft!

When joy returns

After the great reorganization to incorporate a new desk into Maggie's room, she has a lot more floor space. A single bed pushed up against the wall frees up way more space than a big full sized bed.

So tonight she celebrated by jumping and dancing all over it. What else do you do with extra floor space when you're 15? Makes sense.

It does to us anyway. Maggie's had a struggle with some depression and anxiety this year. It's been a stressful and sometimes debilitating journey. The tide began to turn when we whisked her out of school 2 weeks ago to start home schooling again (online school). Stress started to ease. She is playing piano and singing again too.

Joy has come back to our daughter, but we had to be proactive and fight for it. And we couldn't do it on our own. We had to ask for help and found it with a Christian counselor and our doctor.  Thank God His help and guidance and for the helpers in this life. God bless them.

Psalm 30:11

The Message

 You did it: you changed wild lament
    into whirling dance;
You ripped off my black mourning band
    and decked me with wildflowers.
I’m about to burst with song;
    I can’t keep quiet about you.
God, my God,
    I can’t thank you enough.

Treasures

We got to have lunch with our treasures today.



That is all. :)

Making room

Does this happen to everyone or just me?

We got one new piece of furniture today....a very nice desk for Maggie's room from my sister. And we ended up having to rearrange 2 rooms of furniture! It's 1am and I just finished the last load of sheets and a comforter for the 2 beds we switched from room to room.

Maggie came home from being out with friends around 11pm and went straight to bed, plopping into clean sheets... When her comforter was dry a half an hour later, I took it into her room and whipped it up into the air, landing the warm, fluffy blanket perfectly onto my smiling daughter.

Today was a really sweet day.

No Wobbling Zone

Word of the year.....

WAR


I asked God to give me a word for 2013 and I can't say that I like it, I was even kind of shocked that this is the word that kept coming to me.... but I keep getting confirmation that it's the word for me. ....or for my year...


I feel like it is for spiritual warfare. So many things are becoming very clear to me, like a curtain's been parted. I am seeing the need and I am on the assault for my family, my church, my community and people who wave their hands out of VWs as they pass by at 2:22. ;)


I picked up a book called  Praying God's Word by Beth Moore back in October of 2012. It's been sitting in the bag I carry my computer in for 3 months, unread. I fully intended on reading it, but never did. Then I got my word and the next time I was at the church office I actually opened the book. Guess what the topic is! Spiritual warfare. I had just thought it would be an interesting read....a way to deepen my prayer life. But it's all about making war on the strongholds in your life. Day to day life in the battle is not easy and it does not seem victorious. It has a whole chapter on praying with belief. Not belief in God (His Presence), but belief that He will do the things He promised and that He WILL intervene...

...and that don't mean maybe. Believing is an "oh yes He will!", not a wobbly "let's wait and see how it goes".

Words like victor and victory and victorious have been showing up consistently in my daily Bible reading. They jump out at me while I'm reading the Bible. I love that. And 6 weeks into 2013 I am already seeing victories, protection and unexpected answers. Hopefully I can share more of that as I get back into regular writing.



A reassuring thing to me was that I realized that getting a word like war was not a scary thing. Life didn't suddenly become a war zone.


It always has been.


The battle is there every day. I was just asked to join in this year. It's a gift to us.

Anyway, there it is, I said it. *raising my Sword and charging in*

Re-entry

As I saw my friends discussing what they'll abstain from this year for Lent, nothing seemed to jump out at me....not that I don't have a hundred things that I should give up, mind you, just nothing in particular this year. I like to practice Lent though. In the early days of our observing Lent in our family, we used to add a spiritual discipline to our daily routine, instead of giving something up. And I learned a lot through that. I also learned a lot through giving something up for the 40 days when I chose to.

However we practice it, it should be about preparing ourselves to celebrate Easter.

We step away from the things that distract us from Him
              we begin things that will be a spiritually healthy addition to our life,
                           but most importantly, we draw closer to Him.

To read a really wonderful post about Lent, go to Ann Voskamp's blog.

So for Lent this year I am ready to work on the discipline of writing again. I miss it, and I have found that writing about my experiences is an important tool for me in processing my life mentally and spiritually. God always shows me how He's working as I write out a post about my day or a life experience.  While I am actually typing it out,  God is teaching me and showing it to me as it comes through the keyboard and I see it on the page. It often surprises me what it ends up looking like when it's done.

After a long break, it's hard to dive back into blogging, but I am challenging myself. For the next 40 days of the Lent season, I am going enter a post every day, as long as I'm not incapacitated physically or my internet quits on me. It may just be a report on what we had for dinner or a Bible verse that strikes me, but I will put a post up each day and see what God's guiding me to see in it.

The fall and winter have been a roller coaster for me, so I have a lot of catching up to do.

See ya tomorrow...the Lord willing. :)

Snow

I miss snow. I love it! 

God interrupts our precision run world & brings it to a halt with a beautiful, fluffy blanket of white. And all we can do is watch it in awe and wait for Him to finish.

Enjoy it while you can.

Lift Him Up

Discouraging start to our holiday season here. We went out yesterday morning and someone had come up into our entryway, unplugged our outside Christmas figures and carted them off like they were free for the taking.

It's not a huge thing, but it made me angry. I was angry that my things were taken, but most of all just angry that people are so dishonest, mean and selfish.

So today when I feel the anger over it, I'm reminded to pray for our city and country, that during this Christmas season, people's thoughts will turn to Jesus. It's Christmas....a time of year people think about God, so we need to be on our knees for our people that the Holy Spirit will draw all men to Himself because we are lifting Him up!

Let your Light shine. (even if someone tries to swipe it!)