Gateways to Joy

This new year is very important to me.  For one, God has chosen to let me see "a new'" I'm excited to see what ... new things .... awaits me. As I shared with you on Wednesday, my word for the year is: Petros...Rock...Cornerstone . As I go through my daily routine of reading many of your blogs...I'm blessed.  I wonder if my blogging has moved any of you the way I'm moved by you? In reflecting on my wanting to be a ROCK or CORNERSTONE for my faith.   I wonder? How will I go about doing it?  I pray. Then I go to visit Ann ... you know Ann without the fanciful "e"?  Ann who helps us see the cross in the clothespin. Ann who reminds us "all is grace " when living in the "upside down world." She causes me to REMEMBER that my seemingly mundane work is  MY HIGH CALLING...my service to him...a holy work...my holy experience.   A calling and sacrifice that I give to Him each and everyday.  She helps me see ho...

 FYI: ' Walter & Valerie Shepard  As many of you know, I love Elisabeth Elliot.  It is through Elisabeth Elliot, my mentor, that I came to accept and learned how to accept God's will for my life.  Last year, Valerie, Elisabeth and Jim Elliot's daughter honored me by letting me interview her.  She was vague because she has plans on sharing her family story in some manner in the near future, but knowing how I felt about her mother and how much this interview would mean to so many of you she spoke with me via email.   How does your family celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas? We had company often for Thanksgiving, and we always had a " Pilgrim reading " and saying what we each were thankful for around the table. For Christmas we were not often inviting people for dinner because our older children wanted " just family ". We always opened stockings around 7-8 AM, had a Breakfast of baked apples, and either a sweet bread or their favorite "s...

My word for the year: Petros: "Rock".   The year of the rock .  I hope to be one God depends on to do His will.  Be His rock.  Help build His church here on earth.  First by living it out at home, thus carrying it throughout the world. Each Wednesday I participate in community with Ann at A Holy Experience.  She asked us to name our year in this post.  I thought about that... after a while I thought it was a good idea.  How did I come to my Peter moment—my year of the ROCK?  Read on. Yesterday after writing the post MAKING A DIFFERENCE WITH MY WORDS , I was determined to live how I wrote...practice what I'd preached.  Speak words of life into all around me. I didn't do so good. Immediately after cleaning my bedroom, my daughter brought her father's shoes from the living room and said, "Dad here are your shoes." "Sit them right there," he said, pointing to the floor in front of our bed. "No, put them i...

Today is Monday, which means I participate in the Gratitude Community over at A Holy Experience .  It's where a few bloggers and I gather together to share our "thankfulness" to Him...preferably for what others call "the small things."  The light of a new day breaks through.  It wakes me.  I turn to my husband, "Good morning.  Will you rub my back please." He rubs.  His rubs are soothing.  His hands are big; they're warm.  They comfort. It's cold.  I adore cold, sunny mornings... God's mornings.  His beauty shining brightly on me.  His "Good morning daughter" to me. I pray, "Thank you that I can be thankful.  Thank you Lord for allowing me to see a new day.  Thank you that we are all seeing another day together.  Thank you Lord for Ann and continue to watch over them and protect them.  Bless them." I'm at peace again.  They boys will start back with basketball in the new year, first Monday of the...

Sometimes do you feel as though you're not making any progress in your spiritual life regardless of how hard you try? I feel like this a lot at times, thankfully, I'm not feeling like this right now.  For some reason though, I feel compelled to write about it... When I feel this way--stale in my spiritual progression, my mind instantly goes to, Philippians 1:6 " For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." "Is that really true Lord?"  I ask. When I look at my life and the mistakes that I've made, am making, and think about the ones I will make, I wonder will He be able to?  Will I, like Jesus, accomplish what I've come to earth to do? Will you accomplish on earth, like Jesus, what God has sent you here to do? That bothers me and it's constantly on my mind.  I don't want to get close to death "wondering" if I've completed my earthly task....

It's early.  Still dark out.  The house is quiet.  I can't sleep.  I toss and turn.  All that is on my mind is Him. "How have I lived my life?"   I think "Is my life counting for anything, really?" "Am I really making a kingdom difference here on earth?" "How do we know, or can we even know that we are living His will for our lives out as we should?" "How can I know Lord and be assured?" My craving sits me up.  Slowly I get out of bed, careful not to wake my husband of twenty-years (today is our wedding anniversary). The mattress makes an unattractive sound.  I head to the bathroom to wash up, while closing the door I hear a squeak...a loud squeak.  The silence seems so loud this morning.  I hope I don't wake anyone.  I want to be alone.  I need to be alone.  To think.  To listen.  To be... After washing up, I head to the kitchen to make a hot cup of green tea.  I hear the refrigerator....

And the WORD became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. ~ 1 John 1:14 Today is a start of something new.  Each Tuesday I will write about words as is  Ann Voskamp ,  Holley Gerth .  I'm doing this to see how my awareness of my words will change me as well as others. Ann at A Holy Experience has blessed me in ways that I couldn't have imagined by her dedication of sharing her words, thus her life, for others to read.  Her words have become her journal which she shares at: A Holy Experience.   Thank you Ann. Ann and Holley thank you for including us, the reader, to participate in word change by penning our words...our thoughts. Words and writing is very important for communication.  It is in that very form that  I AM, the creator  of the universe chose to speak to His creation via the Holy Bible.  Giving us:  HIS WRITT...

Yesterday, I watched my Aunt, my mother's sister take her last breath...literally. She died. In preparing for today's gratitude list, I was in such a funk until I couldn't think, or rather I didn't want to be thankful for anything...I didn't care. " Life just doesn't seem fair sometimes ," I thought while I was sitting in the hospital room. " Sin is so ugly...so harmful...so hurtful...and I'm wrapped in it ..." " Why didn't Adam just say "no" to Eve?" " Why couldn't God just go back on His Word...just once...and give us another chance?" I've known my Aunt all my life.  She's always been ... She's always been just a phone call away if I couldn't drive to her, but now she's gone.  God choose to take her. " Why ?" "So tell me, please, someone, " What is there to be thankful for ?" Well ... After pulling myself up... Dusting mys...

Today was a good and Godly day for me.  Nothing special happened, yet a lot of special things happened.  Special in that I had the most wonderful time cooking and washing dishes by candlelight while I listened to music and watched my little children play quietly in the fall leaves scattered in the backyard. While staring out my kitchen window, feeling the gentle breeze flowing in I thought ...  ~ I'm blessed. ~ I'm thankful for the calling of: wife.  Motherhood.  Servant. A daunting job, no doubt.  Sometimes it's a "thankless" work, but it's my work.  The work that the Almighty, I AM has given me. This day I am thankful for family and servant hood .

I'm so messed up.  I'm such a sinner. Seems like no matter how much I try I fall to sin's calling and temptations.  I fall down, cry...get back up, only to fall again. I've come to the realization that as much as it hurts to admit:  I don't like suffering.  Rather, I should say I want to choose what I will suffer for and deny myself of what I choose to deny myself of. Often times, I will do almost anything to avoid pain.  I pick and choose, though, I call it by another name.  God calls us to be willing and prepared to do His will. Whatever His will is, even if it means that I must hurt, suffer, or  become BROKEN . Once we are obedient to God and do what He has called us to, sin then looses its grip on us. Have you noticed how when we are in bodily pain, or our health or the health of our love one is in jeopardy our values become clear and, sinful pleasures, whatever they might be, become bleak and less important?...

I never thought I would be thankful for the noise that my children make when they are outside running free and playing, but after what happened this weekend... I'm thankful . Yesterday (Saturday), my children were outside playing.  They were very loud so I went outside to tell them to quieted down.  Several minutes later, three of the seven ran in and said, " Mom something really bad happened outside...a really bad accident with Krishtiana and Kramon!"  My heart stopped as I ran to the door and saw my 9 year-old daughter coming inside crying hysterically... her hand covering her left eye blood running down her face and arm, and her 7 year old brother walking in behind her looking dazed as if he was about to pass out! I ran to her, saw him ran to catch him before he fell right where he was.  While running to him, I yelled to my 13 year-old son who was assisting his sister, " apply pressure to stop the bleeding, someone get him a towel!...