Lights and Icicles

I haven’t done a Wordless Wednesday post in a while so I thought I would share this today!

Week in Review

It has been a bit crazy here on the home front.  Like so many there is always a lot going on this time of year and we are no exception.  I was even lazy this year.  I didn’t do all of the baking I usually do, I didn’t send out our annual newsletter or even very many Christmas cards.  I didn’t even cook Christmas dinner.  We had the tiniest Christmas ever as far as gifts go.  Hubby and I didn’t even get each other a thing.  It was a nice quiet Christmas with our children and we enjoyed it.

One of our daughters turned 8 years on the 26th and we had a nice party for her.  We had a few families over and the children had fun with the pinata in the living room.  I hope I do not find candy months from now under the treadmill or something.  I think she had a good day!

I will be lazy once again.  Rather than separate photos (one for Christmas and one for a birthday) how about one of the birthday girl lighting the Christ candle.

On top of all of this joyous celebration we have also had some trials!  If you follow me on twitter or facebook then you may already be aware of this.  One very recent Saturday we found the carpeting in my son’s room soaking wet.  The wall he shares with the laundry room was so wet is crumbled when touched.  Well, that leak is fixed, carpeting still drying out after a little more than a week and a wall to be replaced.  We then woke the following Sunday morning to a bulging and leaking ceiling out side of his bedroom door.  Another leak with a very poor patch job from the previous owner.  Hubby missed worship that morning replacing copper piping, leak number two fixed.  Then in the evening on Christmas day we found another leak.  This time it was in the bathroom which shares another wall with my son’s room.  This wall will also need to be replaced.   We found the piping not even connected!  This too has been repaired.  We are however still having issues with our water.  This week we will see about having our hot water heater, which we think is the culprit for all of this, either repaired or replaced.  Then we have walls to rebuild.

To top it all off we are passing around a cold……….

Oh well……

Count it all joy…….

Even amidst the struggle of leaky pipes and leaky noses we are still incredibly blessed!  I thank the Lord for his many blessings, his provision, his protection, and his never-ending faithfulness to his children!

So how was your Christmas worship and celebration?  Anything else “fun” happen during the past week??

Snow, Snow, Snow

Big beautiful snow! I love it when we get a big dumping of snow! I am one of those crazy people who loves the snow! Along with it being beautiful and FUN, I find it to be such a great reminder of what the Lord has done for me!

Psalm 51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

With this in mind as we come to celebrate the first coming of our Savior looking forward to his return, here are some photos of our white, white snow! Enjoy!

The deck railing–two feet of snow…..

Tree covered in snow, look at the tree trunk to see how deep it is.

Children on a pile, notice the newspaper mailbox.

Inside the beginnings of our fort.

Hug From A Stranger

As you may have noticed I haven’t posted in several days.  It has been a bit of a tough week for me.  I was having one of those weeks where my strong, hold it together personality started to unravel.  Sometimes things need to be dealt with without simply trying to cover it with a smile.  Anticipation can be a wonderful thing if what you are anticipating is a welcome thing.  Anticipation can also be a terrible thing that turns into dread.  The latter is what I was dealing with this past week.

My hubby has been tasked to deploy several times and it has been pulled.  He has a new tasking now that looks as if it will definitely  happen.  The thing is that each time it gets changed the deployment becomes less palatable.  He is set to deploy in late spring and will begin all of the required trainings in preparation after the first of the new year.

With all of the trainings and other things involved he will be gone about a total of 7 months or a little more this coming year.  He will miss the entire summer, leaving with snow on the ground and returning to snow on the ground.  He will miss the bear hunt and caribou hunt we had planned.  He will miss the big fishing trip.  He will miss our summer jaunts around this great land.  He will also miss the Iditarod, Furrondy, Ice Festivals, and visiting company.  What breaks my heart is that he will miss our 20th anniversary. (We had always been planning on having a wedding to renew vows –since we eloped years ago)  I will also be missing my 20 year high school reunion because I am not willing to be that far away and leave the children here alone.

But you know, even though this is all sad and something I really do not want to do, it is ok.  That is part of the military life.  We sacrifice for the freedoms we still have.  This is not what is really bothering me.

As time gets closer we hear more and more details.  This past week some of those details have unnerved me.  We have found out the location. ( well, as exact as we are allowed to know in that region)  With my hubby being a chaplain he is not authorized to carry a weapon.  He is dependent on others for his protection. People in the office are not very tactful or sensitive when it comes to talking about it with me around.

This deployment is such that it has me very concerned about whether or not my hubby will return.  I find that I am asking myself such questions as, “Is this going to be our last Christmas?”  You may think this is the case with every deployment.  It is not.  We have been in this situation before and I have never even felt the need to contemplate this.

I find it very hard to share this because I often have the burden of people thinking I need to just put up a strong front and let everything roll off my back like water on a duck.  I may be a strong person but that doesn’t mean that I do not struggle.  I just often struggle without others really knowing about it or I end up receiving lectures from others rather than them really being willing to be a comfort to me.

Before anyone decides to slap me with scripture let me assure you I am doing the same thing to myself.  I was sharing with a lady at my daughters’ ballet class the other day.  I was sharing and telling her that I am so thankful that the Lord is our strong tower.  That even though hubby cannot carry a weapon and is going to one of the most dangerous places, I know it is the Lord who is his protector.  I know that the Lord has not given us a spirit of fear and I know that worrying does not change a thing.  I have confidence in my Lord.  This does not mean that emotions always fall in line the way I want them to.

This sweet lady with tears in her eyes gave me a big hug and said she would be praying for our family.  I barely know this woman.  Her hug though meant so much especially then.    It made me think—–how many others are there in this world that need a hug from a stranger–how many people just need to know that someone cares?

Once again, in ministering to me through this other Christian lady the Lord revealed to me the need to minister to others.

Lord, calm my fears.  Protect my family.  Help me to focus on you, rest in you, rely and depend upon you.  Let me see the needs of others and offer the needed hug of a stranger to another.  Amen

Also Check out this posting I saw today. Connecting Through Power of a Hug.

Pondering Persecution

Those of us who are true believers in Christ who pursue holiness and godliness we will at one time or another suffer persecution for our faith.   The ways of God are not the ways of this world and because of that conflict will arise.  Unfortunately, sometimes the persecution even comes from others within the church.  There are even those who see the amount of persecution they endure to be a mark or measuring stick of their holiness.  This lends itself to an attitude that focuses on self rather than the Lord.  Those people not only welcome persecution but sometimes even are the instigators.  Have you ever heard of being your own worse enemy??

Here is my pondering thought for you today.

There is true persecution and suffering but………

Consider this, sometimes it isn’t persecution you are suffering but the result of strife you may be sowing. It takes a very humble heart to be open to the Spirit, to recognize this, repent, and realign our focus on the Lord.  He is our standard and not our perceived level of persecution.

Your thoughts?

Ironic, Huh?

When visiting my father a year or so ago, God showed me something amazing.  It was quite a shock to my system and to be perfectly honest I have been a bit gun shy in posting about it.  Why?  Because it may receive some unwanted backlash.  But here I go anyway.

I was visiting and sharing a bit about how God has worked and changed my life and continues to do so.  My father said, “Well, that God thing works for some people but I just can’t believe that.”

I have mulled that statement over and over again in my mind.  I wonder does anyone else see what I saw?

Here a non-believer, unknowingly, stated biblical theology more accurately than many Christians do. Ironic, huh?

I am still wondering if anyone else sees what I saw?

He didn’t say don’t or even won’t.  He said can’t.  How true that is!   It isn’t that he has just chosen not to believe.  He has an inability to believe.

For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”  Romans 3:9b-12

R.C. Sproul puts it this way…..

No vestigial “island of righteousness” escapes the influence of the fall. Sin reaches into every aspect of our lives, finding no shelter of isolated virtue.

Jesus says:

And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” John 6:65

We are unable, we can’t.  It must be granted by the Father.

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.  For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.   Romans 8:6-8

I will quote R.C. Sproul once more since he has a great gift with words.

For a person to be able to come to Christ, it must be granted or “given” to that person to come to Christ. God must do something for us to overcome our moral inability to come to Christ. We cannot embrace Christ in the flesh. Without the aid of the Holy Spirit, we cannot come to Christ.

So often we try and take the work of the Lord and make it ours. So many Christians rely on what they think they have chosen.  This is works righteousness.  It is all of God and nothing of ourselves that brings about and secures our salvation in Christ. It is not of ourselves or our own choosing. Simple put, we can’t, only God can.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:1-9