1. Take my life and let it be
   Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;
   Take my hands and let them move
   At the impulse of Thy love.
2. Take my feet and let them be
   Swift and beautiful for Thee;
   Take my voice and let me sing,
   Always, only for my King.
3. Take my lips and let them be
   Filled with messages from Thee;
   Take my silver and my gold,
   Not a mite would I withhold.
4. Take my moments and my days,
   Let them flow in endless praise;
   Take my intellect and use
   Every pow’r as Thou shalt choose.
5. Take my will and make it Thine,
   It shall be no longer mine;
   Take my heart, it is Thine own,
   It shall be Thy royal throne.
6. Take my love, my Lord, I pour
   At Thy feet its treasure store;
   Take myself and I will be
   Ever, only, all for Thee.

Today

So here it is, another day. I did nothing to deserve it. I just woke up this morning, and there it was. I may have expected it to be there, but I had no right to. Just like Christmas morning, I got up to find a present waiting for me, a brand new day.

Yes, today is a gift. And it has my name on the tag. This present from God has been custom-made for me. God has filled it with blessings, some obvious and some in disguise. Its difficulties and challenges are tailored to fit my size. It may not be exactly what I asked for, but it is exactly what I need.

-Russell Board

World Magazine, November 18, 2006

"There is in each of us an envy; O how hard a matter it is to rejoice in the gifts, graces, and labours of others, and be content in circumstances, when God casts us by as unworthy, and uses others to glorify his name! We are troubled if others glorify God and not us or more than us, or if they are more holy, more useful, or more serious...We should be content to be abased and obscure provided Christ is honored and exalted."

- Thomas Manton

Signs of Spring

Love and Common Cents

Love and Common Cents

Posted using ShareThis

Keys to Relaxation After Playing in the Snow

Hot Chocolate

Kettle Corn

Reading by the Fire

Snow Play

"There are actually ways to use technology to create more quality family time....'Technology has brought me closer to my family. Parents need to keep the dialogue open about technology if they don't want to be shut out of their children's lives.'

Let your fingers do the talking. Text with your kids. 'Children can't roll their eyes at you or use a sarcastic tone in a text message...'texting limits negative interactions. Plus, parents tend to be long-winded, and texting is better suited to adolescent attention spans."

- "Family Time 2.0," Better Homes and Gardens magazine

Obviously Better Homes and Gardens never heard of kids "doing hard things" or "children obey your parents in the Lord" or anything like that. I'm not a parent yet, but when that time comes, I don't plan on finding parenting advice from this magazine!

HOW TO WRITE GOOD!

1. Avoid alliteration always.

2. Prepositions are no words to end sentences with.

3. Avoid clichés like the plague.

4. Employ the vernacular ad nauseam.

5. Eschew ampersands & abbrev., etc.

6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.

7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

8. Contractions aren’t acceptable.

9. Foreign words are not apropos.

10. As Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”

11. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.

12. One should never generalize.

13. Don’t be redundant; it is highly superfluous to use more words than necessary.

14. Be specific, more or less.

15. Understatement is insipid.

16. Exaggeration is infinitely worse than understatement.

17. One word sentences? Simple. Eliminate!

18. The passive voice is to be avoided.

19. Bad analogies are like feathers on a snake.

20. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.

21. Who needs rhetorical questions?

22. Colloquialisms are grody to the max.

23. Abjure polysyllabic obfuscations.

24. Finally, chech for pselling errors and typeos.

When you are in Love

"When you are truly in love, you go to great lengths to be with the one you love. You'll drive for hours to be together, even if it's only for a short while. You don't mind staying up late to talk. Walking in the rain is romantic, not annoying. You'll willingly spend a small fortune on the one you're crazy about. When you are apart from each other, it's painful, even miserable. He or she is all you think about; you jump at any chance to be together.

In his book, God is the Gospel, John Piper essentially asks whether we are in love with God:

"The critical question for our generation--and for every generation is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?"

How many of you will read those words and say, 'You know, I might just be ok with that.'? If you are deeply in love with God...you know you could never be satisfied in a heaven without Christ."

~From the book, Crazy Love, by Francis Chan

Something worth Blogging About

Romans 5:1-11

¹Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ²Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

⁶For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— ⁸but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. ¹¹More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Brownie Rock

No matter what the internet says, 2 TBLS of corn starch is NOT a good substitute for an egg in brownies. The above picture shows a thick layer of hardened would-be-brownies that are now stuck to the pan. Next time, we will be out coaxing the chickens to lay just ONE more egg!

Just Buy It.

JUST BUY IT.

Now, just read it.

Mary's 10th Birthday

I am reading through the Bible again, currently in Deuteronomy. The Old Testament is not often people's favorite place to read. And yes, I admit, there are some hard passages to get through. But, every time I read the OT, I am reminded of many things, though one thing sticks out the most. God is so patient. Time and again, Israel, HIS CHOSEN PEOPLE, those that He loved, turned away, completely disobeyed, forgot the Lord, etc...God is just and has to punish wickedness, but He never forgot His people. He was patient and forgiving.

It is easy to say, "Oh those terrible Israelites! Why would they complain? God brought them out of slavery and delivered them! They respond with complaints about something so lame, like manna?!?!" or "Dumb Israelites, they knew God had saved them from harm in the past. God said not to fight, so why would they fear, or fight battles they were told to avoid?"

As thoughts like this enter my mind, I must remember:

God has delivered me from _____(many things!) .
He has provided richly.
Why would I complain against a holy God?
(That is exactly what we are doing when: God has provided pizza for supper and we get mad that Papa John's was out of pepperoni so we had to get bacon, OR we have plans that require sun and we get frustrated when it rains. What about when everyone you know is getting engaged or married, is that jealousy discontentment- which is distrust in God's plan? What about when I'm annoyed that the radio in the nice car that was given to me doesn't work, even though the heat/air, seat warmers, automatic everything else does? Some people are worried about winning wars, sometimes I worry about winning a little basketball game. We make plans, but do we rejoice at the opportunity to change them to serve someone who just needs to talk, or needs other help?)

Rather than complain against the Lord for a change of plans, become greedy when others get different blessings than us, getting upset when we don't get our way, we should be thankful to the Lord.
The Israelites sometimes acted like two-year-olds. So do we.
Remember the Lord. Remember God's faithfulness to provide all we need and more. Remember His patience. Imagine giving a Christmas gift to someone, and them saying "I would have liked this if it were bigger/a better brand/a different color." OR "Ya know, this isn't what I asked for, I'd prefer something else."
If that happened, we would feel hurt or angry with the ungrateful person. But, this is what we do to God--the greatest gift giver ever. He gives us life and salvation, and we complain against Him.

We deserve to be thrown out and forgotten, never to receive blessings from God.
But, God is patient.