April 22, 2007 for many was known as Earth Day, but for one unsuspecting blogger, it was just another date on the calendar. Until today, when I remembered that I have an anniversary coming up. Woot!! Happy Bloggiversary to me!
Except that it already came and went, and I missed it. Darn! And I was gonna throw a party or something.
Oh well, we can still eat cake.
Well, bust my buttons! A very dear friend of mine has bestowed this award upon me for making her think. I think most of the time she’s thinking “that woman ain’t right.” (You think that, too, don’t you? It’s okay. I get that a lot.) Seriously, I can’t tell you what an honor this is. Thank you, Barb, for thinking of me! And just when I needed a lift. You bless me. More than you know. Really.
Only now, I’m supposed to pay it forward. This is the hard part because, like Barb, every blog I read makes me think. And I read a lot of blogs. And they’re all good. But I have to narrow it down to 5. FIVE. Out of 86. I don’t even know where to begin.
My understanding is that this is not a competition. We haven’t been nominated as contestants to be voted in or out by majority. If that were the case, I would choose not to participate. Rather, the idea behind this meme is to spotlight blogs that offer interesting, informative content that might be helpful to those who read it. Every single one on my blogroll fits that description. If you aren’t reading them, I think you should be. Since so many of my favorite bloggers have already received this award (see Barb’s list, and Dawn’s list, and Laurel’s list . . . you get the idea) I’m going to pass it on to some that I have not yet added to my blogroll.
Having said all that, here are the rules for participating:
Now I submit to you my list of ‘5 Blogs That Make Me Think.’ Enjoy!
Now I’m off to Arkansas for the end of Spring Break. Happy weekend, y’all!
Okay, folks, before this party winds down, we’re gonna play a game. I’m going to give you a list of names, and you have to guess what they all have in common. The answer will tell you something about me. Are you ready? Oh. Yes, you may Google.
1. Amerigo Vespucci
2. Will Geer
3. Mickey Spillane
4. Raul Julia
5. Charles Gibson
6. Barbie
7. Linda Fiorentino
8. Ford Mustang
9. Brian Bosworth
Forty-one points to everyone who guesses correctly!
Oh, hi! Glad you could make it on such short notice. I really wasn’t planning on having a party, but I’ve just redecorated (my blog, not my house – that’s still on my to do list) and I’d be delighted to show you around. No, that isn’t my front porch, nor did I snap the photo. Credit for the image, which I found at MorgueFile.com, goes to Mary R. Vogt. Come on in and take a Tour of My Home.
On the right, you’ll notice my Daily Bible Verse, courtesy of BibleGateway.com and, ultimately, God, Who has revealed Himself to us in His Word. I can’t get through one day without it, and I hope the same is true for you. My testimony can be found here.
Next is my list of shared links via Google Reader. I love this tool! In just a couple of clicks, I can spotlight great posts from other blogs without having to create a new post.
If you scroll on down a little further, you’ll see some very special people who are being prayed for by lots of other special people. I encourage you to read their stories. The buttons link to their blogs.
The rest is the usual blog fare – you know, links, blog rolls, archives, and more! buttons! Feel free to browse my archives, where you will find a little levity, a little gravity, some hilarity, some solemnity, much sincerity, not much brevity, and a whole lotta faith.
Here are some of my favorites:
Fwd: Fw: Fw: When you care enough to send the very blessed.
Answers to Some of Life’s Tough Questions
To Meme or Not To Meme (A Novel Idea)
Thanks for stopping by! I’ll be dropping in on you soon! Many thanks to our Ultimate Blog Party hostesses, Janice and Susan at 5 Minutes for Mom. Ladies, you rock!!
** Updated to add: Yes, Lord! Yes and amen! $9160 has been given so far. Blessings abound! **
Today’s the day! Go here to find out how you can help.
BooMama’s Tour of Homes™ Christmas Edition is well under way, and I’m not ready for it. Maybe in the next day or two, or perhaps later tonight, I will have a few photos to post. That is if my cheap digital camera will work.
Unlike this family from my hometown, I’m not big on stringing lights “all over the where” as my brother used to say.
Their display grew so large (3 million lights, Barb) that neighbors started to complain. They now have 32 displays all over Arkansas, one at Graceland, and one at Disney World. Needless to say, I won’t be keeping up with the Osbornes this year. Or . . . um . . . ever.
I’ve been known to wait until just a few days before Christmas to catch the excitement. Call me a late bloomer, a blooming idiot, or Scrooge even. I know. Bah Humbug.
I have, however, already managed to get most of my shopping done. In only 3 days. Yay me! My first actual purchase was the gift for my best friend and ex-wife-in-law. Y’all, she will be so surprised! I wish I could tell you what it is, but she reads my blog, so I’m not even going to give hints. And yesterday, my beloved helped me pick out gifts for my nieces and nephew and my brothers-in-law. Now he’s cleaning the kitchen while I’m blogging about it. I love that man.
We decided not to to have a real tree this year, but the little pre-lit table-top tree I got for Lindsey’s room last year will do fine. I just have to find some ornaments for it. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get busy.
Come back later, and I’ll show you around.
Last week, one of my favorite people in the blogosphere decided that I deserve an award “Just Because” I’m on her blogroll. Thank you, Grafted Branch! I am touched and honored. You are truly a blessing!
In other news. . .
Last Thursday after our handbell performance at one of our local hospitals, I had the privilege of fellowshipping with some of the other ringers (or ding-a-lings, as our worship leader affectionately calls us) at a world-renown coffee house. It was the first time I had ever been there. Now I’m not a coffee connoisseur, but one doesn’t have to be to enjoy a good latte. Ahhh! The aroma! I ordered a peppermint mocha latte, and after just one sip, I knew that I would be returning to their establishment.
Saturday, Carl took me shopping for a new outfit for Sunday, and he even helped me pick it out. JC Penney was having a sale, and we got everything for less than half price. I love me some Penney’s. We took the kids out for dinner afterwards, then we topped off the evening with a visit to the aforementioned coffee shop. I think I’m hooked. We may have started a new tradition.
Now here’s a little tip for those of you whose husband would rather have scalding coffee spilled in his lap than accompany you to the mall: Bribe him with a trip to Starbucks!
In the works. . .
I’m pondering doing a serious discussion series on a couple of topics that have been on my mind a lot lately. Lord willing, “Doctrine Matters” and “The War on Error” will be coming soon.
Y’all have a fabulous week!
1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? Hot chocolate. With or without marshmallows. My grandma (dad’s mom) made the best hot cocoa ever.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree? That Santa is so unpredictable. Sometimes he wraps, but usually he doesn’t.
3. Colored lights or white? I prefer white, but since my beloved does the honors, we always have colored lights. We don’t do lights on the house.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? If we have some we do, but it isn’t necessary.
5. When do you decorate for Christmas? After we buy the tree. Usually a couple of weeks before Christmas. Never ever ever before December. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish, excluding dessert? I’m gonna say fruitcake. Since no one really likes it, it can’t be considered dessert, can it? Really, it has to be chicken and dressing.
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? The gifts we got every year from my great grandmother. We always got the same thing, all 3 of us girls, so we would open our presents all at once, knowing we’d have to hold them up and show them. Know what they were? Big ol’ honkin’ granny panties! Yeah, we hated it at the time, but looking back, it was the most hilarious thing ever. We were never able to wear them.
8. When and how, did you learn the truth about Santa? I was 9 or 10. One year in June, I decided to test a theory I had that Santa wasn’t always watchin’. I wrote a letter and hid it inside the piano bench. He never found it. Why June? I didn’t want to ruin Christmas. DUH!
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? The kids get to open at least one. Sometimes they persuade us to let them open all of them.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Haphazardly. I always start out trying to be organized, but I always let the kids help. I do a little bit of rearranging afterwards, just to give it some balance. I like to have Mannheim Steamroller playing in the background while we decorate.
11. Snow. Love it or hate it? Love the real stuff. Hate the fake stuff.
12. Can you ice skate? As a native Arkansan, I have to say that depends on your definition of skate. If you mean glide gracefully across the ice, then no. If, on the other hand, you mean flail my arms wildly while stumbling without actually falling down, then I’m your girl.
13. Do you remember your favorite Christmas gift? Sarah was born 5 days before Christmas 1991.
14. What is the most important thing about the holidays to you? Remembering the Reason for the season and being with family.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Cherry cheesecake.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Gee, the only thing we’ve ever done consistently is wrap presents on Christmas eve. No wait. Stuffing stockings after the kids have gone to bed. That’s fun. Gathering around the TV to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a must. The best thing, though, and this should probably be up there with favorite childhood memory, is getting up early on Christmas morning to see what Santa brought, then going to Grandmother’s (mom’s mom) to watch Macy’s Christmas Parade.
17. What tops your tree? A bow, I think. Or a blinking star. Whichever one we can get to stay up there.
18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? “…remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ” Jesus said it, and I believe it. But even if He hadn’t, I think I would rather give.
19. What is your favorite Christmas song? I love them all. The Little Drummer Boy is my all time favorite. Close behind, and in no particular order are Do You Hear What I Hear, O Holy Night, and What Child Is This.
20. Candy canes. Yuck or yum? Yum. And it’s fun to suck the end to a fine point then poke your sister with it. Or so I hear. :o)
God began a good work in me during a revival service, when at age 9, I followed my parents and sisters to the altar to join the church we had been attending. We were all baptized the following Sunday. We attended church faithfully for a few years, then my dad stopped going altogether, and my mom continued to take us or to put us on the church bus when she didn’t go herself.
We were well-behaved children who knew how to act in church and out of church, but our family didn’t pray together, except to say the “blessing” in unison over the noon meal on Sundays. We didn’t do family devotions, but my dad had bought each of us a Children’s Living Bible, which he challenged us to read from front to back, just as he was reading the Living Bible. I don’t remember much of what I read, except the incredibly long genealogy lists that made no sense to me. I couldn’t even pronounce the names, but I slogged through it to the end, no more enlightened than I had been before I started.
When I entered junior high, I was so excited to get to move up to the youth group that my older sister was involved in. She wanted to be in church all the time, and I wanted to know what that was all about. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had been following in her footsteps all along. At age 14, I was listening to a sermon in which the pastor said that if we hadn’t experienced a true change in our hearts, if we were able to sin without conviction, then we were not truly saved. I did a quick review of my life and realized that nothing had changed, even though I had prayed the sinner’s prayer and was baptized. I was still the same person I had always been. While I wasn’t a bad person by worldly standards, I knew that I didn’t have Jesus in my heart. I had been going through the motions and hadn’t understood what it meant to follow Jesus. That night, I went forward at the altar call, made a profession of faith in Christ, and was baptized the following Sunday.
I loved going to church, singing hymns, and worshipping with fellow believers. I became more obedient to my parents. I only had Christian friends, and everyone at school knew that I was one of “them.” I was never faced with any peer pressure to try drugs or alcohol, and I was never invited to any parties. It was cool to be a Christian, no matter how uncool I was. Life was good. What I didn’t know then was that my profession of faith was just that, a profession. It would be years before I obtained possession of faith.
Towards the end of my senior year, I began to have questions that I didn’t know where to find the answers to. Mostly, they were questions about doctrine. How were Southern Baptists different? How did we know we were right and everyone else was wrong? What if we’re wrong? Rather than look to the Bible for answers, I struck out on my own in search for truth and got instead a big ol’ dose of reality. Having been a goody-two-shoes all my life, I was convinced that I was good to go, ready for the world. Man, was I ever wrong. Temptation after temptation presented itself, and I was surprised at how easy it was to give in. I hated the things I did, hated myself for doing them, and wanted desperately to find my way back to God, but I was too ashamed. I prayed often, asking for forgiveness, but I had a hard time accepting that He would forgive me. I had rebelled against Him. I had abandoned the church. I had married an unbeliever. I had compromised my testimony. How could I make it right?
Ten years after I left the church, God provided a way for me to come back. My marriage was in trouble, and my husband had gone to visit a local pastor. After counseling with the pastor, we decided that we needed to be in church. My husband was baptized, and I “rededicated” my life to Christ when we joined another Southern Baptist church. I felt like I was home, but I had doubts about my salvation because of the life I had led for the past 10 years. I prayed for assurance. One morning, I noticed that a scar I’d had on my knee for years was gone. Completely vanished. Then I heard a voice say “You are my child.” I knew then that God had been there all the time, waiting for me to turn to Him for the answers I had been seeking. He had allowed me to come face to face with my desperate need for Him. My faith had been tried, and though I had faltered, He had proven Himself faithful.
I wish I could say that I’ve been faithful ever since, but I can’t. What I can say is that I have never again doubted my salvation. I am a child of God, bought and paid for with the blood of Jesus Christ, and any good that is in me is from Him. After several years of struggling to make up for my wasted life, I finally realized that there is nothing I can do to earn His forgiveness. It is a free gift of grace, of which I am most unworthy, which God in His infinite mercy has bestowed upon this sinner for reasons known only to Him. Whenever I have stumbled, He has brought me to repentance, forgiven me, and drawn me closer to Him. He continues to prove Himself faithful, and I am confident that He who began a good work in me will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.
This post is brought to you today by the Bloggy Tour of Testimonies, hosted by Lauren at Created for HIS Glory. Click here for more stories of God’s amazing grace or to share your own.
1) Exercise – I seriously need to get up off my computer-chair-shaped behind and go walking.
2) Cook – It’s been too long since I’ve fed my husband a home-cooked meal.
3) Clean – The bedrooms are disaster areas. My husband cleaned the kitchen and living room while I was away on retreat, and I really should tackle the rest of the house.
4) Sew – I’ve outgrown most of my clothes, and I’ve got plenty of fabric and patterns to work with. I also should get started making quilts for Christmas gifts.
5) Balance the checkbook. Yeah, it’s been a while.
6) Finish reading the books I’ve started. I’m currently reading Beth Moore’s “Breaking Free” and David Bordon’s “Discover the Power in the Prayers of Paul.”
7) Get in the habit of going to bed earlier and getting up earlier. I definitely need my beauty sleep. I’m starting to look my age!
8) Lose some weight. I’ve put on 20 pounds in the past 2 years. I’d love to be able to wear my clothes comfortably. I would still make new ones, and I’d have some fabric left over for quilts.
9) Declutter closets. We have way more stuff than we need.
10) Donate items to the Salvation Army.
11) Get the garage ready for conversion to a den.
12) TIRL with some of my bloggy friends, like Barb and Kelli.
13) Write letters to friends in Arkansas who aren’t web-enabled.
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