Rainbow

Yesterday afternoon I was working upstairs and looked out the window and saw this:




Pretty cool, eh?

Visitation

Tuesday night Tom had hospital visitation. This is one of his duties as a deacon in our church. Personally, I don't care for this part of the ministry. Hospital visits and nursing homes just don't do it for me.

On one of our visits we went to the nursing home across the street from our old church building. The neighbor hood is not one you want to stay in for any length of time after the sun sets. Tom and I go in to visit Mary. This precious little gem was glowing from head to toe with JOY! We don't know what all is physically wrong with Mary, but we could see that she couldn't speak. She has a lamenated paper that has the alphabet on it that she uses to communicate with. Her eyes glowed and her face shown with gladness and joy at our brief visit. Here she is in a nursing home, which can be amongst the saddest places to be and though she couldn't speak, it was obvious that she was joyful. She has risen above her circumstances and her trials and is joyful. I want to be like Mary!

Divine Appointment

Sunday morning after our Sunday school class, I went down the hall to the ladies room. It was packed and I couldn't wait that long, so I went down the elevator to the first floor ladies room. In this particular building is our Chapel and the Parlor where Pastor Rob has a reception for new visitiors after the first and second services of the day. As I walk past the Parlor, Sue, Pastor's secretary is standing outside the room talking to a couple. I recognize the woman! Cindy and I went to the same 'tech' school for medical secretary, and worked together for a number of years at Blue Shield back before Tom and I were married. She and Tom went to elementary, jr. high and high school together. Anyway, I touched her shoulder and called her name and she turned around and gave me a big hug! I found out that she and her family have been attending our church for about 4 weeks, and they are joining and are wanting to get plugged in. I invited them to our Sunday school class. We exchanged phone numbers, and they don't live too far from us, so I'm going to give her a call later this week. I can not tell you how many times over the past years I've thought about Cindy, and prayed for her. We lost touch after Tom and I moved to Germany in 1984. When I went to the sanctuary to find Tom and take my seat, he was wondering why it took me so long to get in. I told him to guess who I ran into in the other building, and of course he had no idea. I told him and he was like "get out!" I hope we see them in our class, I think they would fit right in!

Resolutions and the like

I've never been one to make a resolution at New Years time. Doing so just never seemed to 'do it' for me. In recent years I've set goals to be accomplished during the year. Well, last year, I didn't accomplish any of my goals. 2007 was a year I was glad to see go. I honestly can say that even though I didn't accomplish my goals, God accomplished much in my life.

This year, I'm looking at goals a bit differently. This article is one reason. The women on a message board that I have posted on off and on for a number of years used this article to choose their "word". I began to pray about what my goals or my "word" should be. This devotion arrived in my inbox on New Year's Day. I took this as a hint and my word for the year is "consecrated". Why? During 2007, I took my focus off what should be the most important thing in my life: my walk with the Lord. Sure, I attend church every week, but the time alone with God was missing. Last night I was reading through some blogs and came across this post written by one of the ministers at my church. I believe it goes right along with my word, consecration. I need to be intentional in my putting God first. Period. How have I begun to go about this? My list is below:

~~Reading the Word daily. I used to think I had to read through the Bible in a year, and keep up with the schedule. Now, I know it's important to be in the Word, and not worry about a schedule. If I read through it in a year, great! If not, that's okay too.

~~Spending time in private prayer.

~~Reading my Sunday school lesson instead of showing up on Sunday morning and expecting Matt to impart his wisdom on me.While Matt's a great teacher, and we are blessed to have him, I know that I'll get much more out of studying on my own, and comparing notes in class.

~~Participating in a Wednesday evening class. After my father-in-love died, Tom and I got caught up in helping my mother-in-love get through stuff, and we lost the habit of being in a study on Wednesday. This go around I'm participating in a Beth Moore study. Tom is doing a study at home with Kayla on our church's doctrinal statement, Mikaija is going to the middle school youth department, and Kris is attending the college group when he's not working.

~~The last thing I'm doing is Praise Moves, which is a Christian alternative to yoga. For so many years, I've tried to get fit on my own, and it's just not happening. This year, my workouts and my fitness will be dedicated to strengthen this temple God had given me, so I may be fit for service in His kingdom.

So, I guess my "word"/"words" are now, intentional consecration.

Dusting this thing off!

I decided tonight to dust off this old Blogger account, and put some thoughts here! :-)

I'll be back tomorrow with a better post.