My Favorite Magazine

I just love Pray magazine. I have been a subscriber for over a year now and have been so moved by it. I just wanted to share something from this months issue that I liked and wanted to implement as a prayer idea.

Since we wait in so many lines the idea was to pull out your cell phone and look at your contacts. Lift each name up in prayer as you wait.

What a simple yet brilliant idea. In prayer I feel like I forget so much or so many people but I am going to start this.

If you want more info on pray magazine you can go here.

Abundant Grace Week Two Discussion Questions

Wow-I am so proud of you all persevering in diligent study of the Word of God! May God richly bless your efforts to know Him better. I am loving all that we are learning together. Feel free to come back and post as often as you like. Let's get a discussion started together.

Regarding Jacob, Judah, and Tamar;

1-What are some things that made them ordinary?

2-What were their main challenges?

3-Deception continues to run rampant in this family. Do you know any families like this? Share your example with the group, for confidentiality purposes don’t share their names.

4-When God blesses His servants it spills over onto everything they do. Like Jacob, Laban prospered because of God’s blessing on Jacob. With that blessing often comes jealousy from others. Can you see and example of this in your church? Again, for confidentiality purposes don’t share names.

5-Despite our sinful condition, God does work all things for the good of those who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). Can you give an example that you have seen of this in your life.

6-Friendships based on God are so important. Can you say this is true for your friendships? Explain.

I am not saying at all not to be friendly to non-believers. This is one way to reach out to them by living your faith so they can see it. Hanging out with them while they do non-believer things is not wise. By doing this it is very likely you will fall into temptation.

7-Have you ever seen an example of this happening in someone’s life?

Congrats to Book Winner

Yeah Cindi! You won the book Act Two! I emailed you about it.
Thanks to all who entered.

A Story I Have To Share

I have a fear. It is a realistic fear yet irrational in nature. I have a hard time going outside and walking in the woods and grass. I want my children to experience this but it was these experiences that robbed me of a normal life.

At one point in my past I was infected with the Lyme disease bacteria. When it started to attack my body my health declined swiftly. I was unsure of what was happening. My test results kept coming back fine. I was told it was in my head. Yet I continued to decline in health.

God lead me to a doctor who treated Lyme disease in Missouri. God used him to start a treatment that saved my life. A few times I thought I was losing the battle and really wished I did but God had other plans. After seven years of battle God miraculously took it away overnight. It was a wonderful miracle. This past June I celebrated my three year mark of being Lyme free. Yet the one problem I suffer is that since then my full strength has never truly returned.

God is good though and reminds me everyday that I need to cast those cares on Him. His grace is sufficient for me. He will never leave or forsake me.

I need to share my story because this is a VERY serious illness and though not all ticks carry the bacteria, some do. Please pray for these patients and the doctors brave enough to treat them. I wanted to share with you a CNN news story on this issue that can be viewed here.

Also, this is a great video worth watching to help explain this horrible illness. I am sure you probably know someone going through it or someone who is sick but no one knows what is going on with them.

A New Walmart Moment

So all of you that keep up with my blog know that I do not like going to Walmart. I have such crazy experiences there and well today when I decided to go after quite a while I had another one of these experiences!

I was running a few errands and Walmart is a must because my daughter who loves chocolate milk but refuses to drink any brand but Walmart. Believe me I have tried to trick her with every other brand there is out there-I know that is not so spiritual. Bear with me.

On my drive I was listening to Beth Moore CD on the fruit of the Spirit and this ones was patience. It spoke about bearing with one another so I was asking God to let me be a light on this experience to those around me. An example of Him.

As I walked through I encountered so many people who looked so unhappy so I just smiled and prayed for each one. Then when I got all my stuff and to the check out the lady checking me out commented on my choice of Chester's Puffcorn. She said it looked good. I said it was and asked her if she wanted to try it. She said yes so much to all our surprise I opened the bag and she took a big handful and tried them. Good thing she liked them! :) I could only chuckle at what was just done. She commented on how hungry she was so God used that to bless her.

Now, I have to confess I am a germaphobe so I could not stop worrying about how clean her hands were since she was handling groceries and money and all but God took that away as I gave that to him. The lady behind me must have been thinking the same thing because her lip hit the floor at this scene and said, "that was nice." I asked her if she wanted some and she said, "no thankyou". It was so funny. My Walmart experiences never get old. I bet this does not happen anywhere other than Tennessee! :)

The funny thing about it is that we are really low on funds this month and what I bought has to last us until the end of the month. I wonder if God was testing how giving I would be because as I picked up each item I was thanking God for it and asking Him to multiply it like the fishes and loaves. We have made a commitment to debt-free living and with that comes certain sacrifices. Like the trip I wrote about a few weeks ago. I forgot to mention the best thing though-God let a donation come in today in the mail to help aid me on my Malta trip. God is so good.

Fun With Words

Some phrases thrown around the household lately.

Mom, can I put my swimsoup on? (translation: swimsuit.)
Mom, will you put the sunscream on me? (translation: sunscreen.)

Refresh My Soul Weekly Devotional

The devotional is up here.