Hi out there if anyone is still listening!! I'm going to try this blogging thing again! But this time, I'm going to be a little less serious. I might blog every day, I might not. I might blog on some serious thoughts, I might not! I'm excited to be back here though and can't wait to catch up with my blogging friends!
Now for some news: We are pregnant!! Having baby #4. It was quite a surprise, but a blessing nonetheless. I am completely exhausted right now, but hopefully it will get better once this first trimester is OVER! We are due January 23. Right after the busy Christmas season. At least we will be able to get through that, hopefully right?
So pop in and say hello my long-lost friends!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Monday, October 26, 2009
God's Almighty Presence
St. Contardo Ferrini Blessed be the Lord day by day, God, our salvation, Who carries us. Psalms 68: 29
Day by day... this is the catch phrase for me this morning. Each day brings something new. It could be good things like parties in school, the birth of a baby, a dance class with my youngest, or a raise in my husband's paycheck. It could also bring challenges like a busted furnace, laundry piled up on my couch, a sick child (or myself), or a bad behavior report from one of my kids' teachers. Either way, God is present in all of it.
Day by day, God is here teaching me and guiding me in my life to get closer to Him. But I must be open to it. I must look at those challenges as chances to get closer in my relationship to Him. I can use those good times too! He is right there, in the smile of my baby, and in that pile of laundry. He is there in our celebrations, and in the lessons I will learn from the misbehavior of my child.
Day by day, I am grateful for all the trials, the tribulations, and the outright blessings that occur in my daily life. It all brings me, and all of us, closer to our Lord.
Dear Lord, be with me today, and every day, to help me to see the blessings You bring me in everything that happens in my daily life.
Daily Readings:
Romans 8:12-17 Psalms 68:2, 4, 6-7, 20-21 Luke 13:10-17
Friday, October 23, 2009
Teach Me
St. John of Capistrano
Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? Luke 12:57
What I'm about to post is pretty self-explanatory, but a lot to think about. The readings really come together in an effort to make ourselves better. To make ourselves more righteous according to Him. When we relinquish the control we think we have over our lives and humble ourselves to His will, then and only then are we living a life God intended for us to live. I'm not saying it's easy because I struggle with this everyday of my waking and sleeping life. But I certainly do try and I'm hoping God knows that.
I love the Psalms reading for today, it's a good prayer:
Teach me wisdom and knowledge,
for in Your commands I trust.
You are good and do what is good;
teach me Your laws.
May Your love comfort me
in accord with your promise to Your servant.
Show me compassion that I may live,
for Your teaching is my delight.
I will never forget Your precepts;
through them You give me life.
I am Yours; save me,
for I cherish Your precepts.
I need to start everyday out with this prayer. It may help me to humble myself in order to accept the teachings He presents me with.
Lord, open my mind, my heart, and my soul to You and Your teachings so I might accept them and use them in my life.
Daily Readings:
Romans 7:18-25 Psalms 119:66, 68, 76-77, 93-94 Luke 12:54-59
Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? Luke 12:57
What I'm about to post is pretty self-explanatory, but a lot to think about. The readings really come together in an effort to make ourselves better. To make ourselves more righteous according to Him. When we relinquish the control we think we have over our lives and humble ourselves to His will, then and only then are we living a life God intended for us to live. I'm not saying it's easy because I struggle with this everyday of my waking and sleeping life. But I certainly do try and I'm hoping God knows that.
I love the Psalms reading for today, it's a good prayer:
Teach me wisdom and knowledge,
for in Your commands I trust.
You are good and do what is good;
teach me Your laws.
May Your love comfort me
in accord with your promise to Your servant.
Show me compassion that I may live,
for Your teaching is my delight.
I will never forget Your precepts;
through them You give me life.
I am Yours; save me,
for I cherish Your precepts.
I need to start everyday out with this prayer. It may help me to humble myself in order to accept the teachings He presents me with.
Lord, open my mind, my heart, and my soul to You and Your teachings so I might accept them and use them in my life.
Daily Readings:
Romans 7:18-25 Psalms 119:66, 68, 76-77, 93-94 Luke 12:54-59
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Absolute Slavery
St. Hilarion
Freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness. Romans 6:18
Well, I'm trying this again. I haven't blogged for a couple of months now, and in those months I feel farther from God than I did while I was blogging. I think that having this blog and a daily reading to post, helped me to stay on track. I was reading God's Word every day and reflecting on it. Now I'm lucky to crack my Bible a couple of times a week. I don't like that. I enjoy reading the Bible and learning all I can learn about how to be a good and faithful Christian.
I want to be a slave of righteousness. I want to be so involved with our Lord that that's all I can think about. I want to fully accept all He has in store for me, without reservation. But it's been a struggle. I have begun to think more about myself and what would be good for me. I have a hard time distinguishing between what I want and what He wants for me. But He always lets me know in some way shape or another.
I thought that getting back to my roots of teaching would make both of us happy, but apparently not. Every time I try to get a job that I think would be good for me and my family, something doesn't work out with it. So that has made me a little miserable because I was trying to accept that as part of my life and incorporate a part-time job into my current life. It's so hard right now. I have 3 children, 2 in school, and a lot of volunteer hours to complete. I have a 2-year-old to keep busy, and a family to keep in God's loving arms. If I had a job, where would I have time to pray for all of us? Where would I have time to spend with my kids without worrying about everything I have to do around the house? Having a job is so stressful. And maybe it will get easier as they get older, but for now, I think my place is right where I am. And I just have to accept it.
I want to accept it, with all my heart. I want to be His slave so I can be led to righteousness.
This Scripture for the day also struck me and I realized just how important my job here in my home is, even though I'm not getting a physical paycheck:
Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come. Luke 12:39-40
Daily Readings
Romans 6:12-18 Psalm 124:1-8 Luke 12:39-48
Freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness. Romans 6:18
Well, I'm trying this again. I haven't blogged for a couple of months now, and in those months I feel farther from God than I did while I was blogging. I think that having this blog and a daily reading to post, helped me to stay on track. I was reading God's Word every day and reflecting on it. Now I'm lucky to crack my Bible a couple of times a week. I don't like that. I enjoy reading the Bible and learning all I can learn about how to be a good and faithful Christian.
I want to be a slave of righteousness. I want to be so involved with our Lord that that's all I can think about. I want to fully accept all He has in store for me, without reservation. But it's been a struggle. I have begun to think more about myself and what would be good for me. I have a hard time distinguishing between what I want and what He wants for me. But He always lets me know in some way shape or another.
I thought that getting back to my roots of teaching would make both of us happy, but apparently not. Every time I try to get a job that I think would be good for me and my family, something doesn't work out with it. So that has made me a little miserable because I was trying to accept that as part of my life and incorporate a part-time job into my current life. It's so hard right now. I have 3 children, 2 in school, and a lot of volunteer hours to complete. I have a 2-year-old to keep busy, and a family to keep in God's loving arms. If I had a job, where would I have time to pray for all of us? Where would I have time to spend with my kids without worrying about everything I have to do around the house? Having a job is so stressful. And maybe it will get easier as they get older, but for now, I think my place is right where I am. And I just have to accept it.
I want to accept it, with all my heart. I want to be His slave so I can be led to righteousness.
This Scripture for the day also struck me and I realized just how important my job here in my home is, even though I'm not getting a physical paycheck:
Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come. Luke 12:39-40
Daily Readings
Romans 6:12-18 Psalm 124:1-8 Luke 12:39-48
Friday, August 7, 2009
In Memory of Me
St. Cajetan
Ask now of the days of old, before your time.... Deuteronomy 4:32
OK, I totally stole the title to this post. But I decided yesterday that this would be my last devotional that I put on my blog and send out. The computer and the Internet are taking up too much of my time and I'm not putting the important things first, like documenting and taking care of my family's pictures. Our pictures tell our life stories and we have ours on our computer, (I thought on my external hard drive), and on CD's. We are almost caught up with the pictures on CD's. Then two days ago, the hard drive on our laptop went out. And I'm not sure if we will be able to recover all of our photographs. I may have lost 4 months of my children's, and our family's, memories.
It makes me sad to know that I could have done something about this, but didn't make it a priority. The scrapbooks that I make are our life stories. These are books that my kids are going to be able to show to their kids and their kids and their kids.... They will be passed down from generation to generation. And I want to focus more on that.
So I completely embrace this Scripture passage this morning. I am going to make more of an effort to make our memories a priority. I want my kids to know their past. I want my kids to know where they came from. I also want them to know how faith can have an impact on their life. That is why I want to make a Faithbook. I have wanted to make one for a year now and have not even started it. It makes me sad because there are so many things I want to say. There are so many things that happen in my life with God that I want to share with my children. And I want to make the effort to journal that.
So I have a lot of projects I need to work on. And the Internet is too addicting! I'm going to take the rest of August off to re-prioritize and get everything back on track. After that, we will see how things are going and if I will be coming back to the blogging world.
If you want to read a devotional each day, order some from Living Faith. They are wonderful and extremely affordable. They will come to your home in small booklets. Perfect for the pocket or purse or drawer for easy accessibility. God Bless.
Daily Readings:
Deuteronomy 4:32-40 Psalm 77:12-16, 21 Matthew 16:24-28
Ask now of the days of old, before your time.... Deuteronomy 4:32
OK, I totally stole the title to this post. But I decided yesterday that this would be my last devotional that I put on my blog and send out. The computer and the Internet are taking up too much of my time and I'm not putting the important things first, like documenting and taking care of my family's pictures. Our pictures tell our life stories and we have ours on our computer, (I thought on my external hard drive), and on CD's. We are almost caught up with the pictures on CD's. Then two days ago, the hard drive on our laptop went out. And I'm not sure if we will be able to recover all of our photographs. I may have lost 4 months of my children's, and our family's, memories.
It makes me sad to know that I could have done something about this, but didn't make it a priority. The scrapbooks that I make are our life stories. These are books that my kids are going to be able to show to their kids and their kids and their kids.... They will be passed down from generation to generation. And I want to focus more on that.
So I completely embrace this Scripture passage this morning. I am going to make more of an effort to make our memories a priority. I want my kids to know their past. I want my kids to know where they came from. I also want them to know how faith can have an impact on their life. That is why I want to make a Faithbook. I have wanted to make one for a year now and have not even started it. It makes me sad because there are so many things I want to say. There are so many things that happen in my life with God that I want to share with my children. And I want to make the effort to journal that.
So I have a lot of projects I need to work on. And the Internet is too addicting! I'm going to take the rest of August off to re-prioritize and get everything back on track. After that, we will see how things are going and if I will be coming back to the blogging world.
If you want to read a devotional each day, order some from Living Faith. They are wonderful and extremely affordable. They will come to your home in small booklets. Perfect for the pocket or purse or drawer for easy accessibility. God Bless.
Daily Readings:
Deuteronomy 4:32-40 Psalm 77:12-16, 21 Matthew 16:24-28
Thursday, August 6, 2009
A Dazzling Revelation
Transfiguration of the Lord
[Jesus] was transfigured before them, and His clothes became dazzling white... Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them. Mark 9:2-3, 7
I'm a little out of sorts this morning. I'm having a hard time getting something together for this Scripture today. First of all, I'm not really sure what this Transfiguration is all about so instead of researching and putting something out there for you, I'm going to give you the devotional from Living Faith. It's a good one. Then I'm going to continue my research into the Transfiguration of our Lord until the kids won't allow me to any longer. :)
This strange event seems to cover the full range of human experience: the ordinary muddle, the crystal clarity and the downright puzzling. Jesus in His divinity is revealed alongside Moses and Elijah, those iconic representations of the Law and the Prophets. But no sooner does that happen than the cloud descends, obscuring what had just been revealed. Just like that, our certainties elude us the moment we think we've figured it all out.
God, the Transfiguration seems to say, is as present in the dazzling Christ as in the obscuring cloud, in the clarity of understanding as in the confusion of mind.
But revealed in the most dramatic moments of our lives, God is no less present in the ordinary awareness of every single day. Jesus goes down the mountain with the disciples, more than ever convinced that in certainty or confusion and everything in between, He is with them.
Lord, reveal Yourself to me today.
- Mark Neilsen
Daily Readings:
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14 Psalm 97:1-2, 5-6, 9 2 Peter 1:16-19 Mark 9:2-10
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)