weekending/Hello Monday

 

Happy Monday, friends! I'm linking up with Holly and Sarah for today's blog post. 

Can you even believe it is Christmas week? I am shaking my head at this, but I am grateful that I don't have much of anything else to do. I have one gift left to buy and that will get done on Wednesday, and I have wrapping to do between now and then, in between working two days this week. Have you done your wrapping yet? We have very few gifts to wrap this year. The boys are each getting one gift, because what they wanted was expensive. Then we have about five additional gifts, but I've always wrapped at the last minute. I kind of love that Christmas is on the weekend, because I have all the week to prepare. I don't know if my family likes that Christmas is on the weekend, though. 

We had a great weekend! It was busy and full of family. On Friday my dad came over, but we stayed in since it was cold and because he didn't feel great. (His back really hurts sometimes.) I was so glad he could still come over, and we had a nice day together. Before he got here I cleaned and caught up on my Bible reading again. I keep getting behind and have to spend an hour catching up. After I took Dad home, I went straight to my mom's house since Todd was working that night. Bill made the most delicious chicken tortilla soup for dinner, of which I ate two bowls. After that we just kind of talked and I showed Mom how to comment on my blog from her phone. 🤣 I love you, Mom! Look how beautiful their house looks all decked out for Christmas.

Bill outdid himself...it looks way better than what my blurry pictures convey. 

I came home and watched part of a movie, but I wasn't very into it and stopped paying attention. I think I ended up turning on Gilmore Girls and went to bed pretty early. Saturday we celebrated Christmas with my husband's family! I woke up early and watched this adorable movie.

Then we all went to his parent's house and stayed later than we normally would. The boys all ended up leaving there earlier in the afternoon to come home and take care of the dogs, but Todd and I went out to dinner with his brother and his wife. Tim and Tracy live near Nashville, but we only see them once a year. They have three sons and one came with his girlfriend (he's their 19 year old) and the other two are sixteen and eleven. Nathan (the 19 year old) is three weeks younger than my Jonah and Noah. They grew up being called the triplets, because they're all the same age and height. Jonah's girlfriend came with him as well—it was a really good day. I took a few pictures, but just a few.

The top two are Drew with Oakley. He's also known as the animal and kid whisperer. It's the sweetest! The third picture is our nephew Joseph and the bottom one is Zeke. And that's all I took! I did feel very present and in the moment, which is always nice and never something I regret. 

And on Sunday morning, Todd and I were at church early. 

I always, always stop by the restroom first to put my in-ear monitors in place (it goes under my clothes), and I always do an outfit check in this mirror before walking into the the sanctuary. 

I am going to miss this view when it all gets packed away after Christmas! 

We sang the best songs for worship yesterday! I was excited to sing yesterday when I got there, because Christmas time is my favorite time to help lead worship. After church yesterday, I came home to get comfy and stayed in for the rest of the day. I took a nap, I worked on this blog post and started a few others for the week, I ate dinner, then Drew came home to eat something and I watched a couple of movies, ending with one of my favorites. Can you guess what it is by these pictures?

It has Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson, Claire Danes, Luke Wilson, Dermot Mulroney, Amy McAdams, Luke Wilson...

It's one of my favorite movies! I would say the highlight of my weekend was having dinner with my brother and sister-in-love on Saturday after our Christmas celebration. We never get to do that and we had so much that we sat there for a couple of hours after we finished dinner and Tracy had dinner # 2, because she got hungry again. 🤣 

She'll kill me if she knows I posted this, but it cracks me up! One of these was mine and one was hers, she was not drinking both. It was a great weekend. What was the highlight of your weekend? I'd love to hear from you! Thanks for reading my blog, friends! Love to all.

P.s. The movie was The Family Stone. 😉

Wednesday in the Word

 

Happy Wednesday, friends. 

I hope that by the time you read this you've spent time with Jesus. I don't always have that time with Him early in the morning, but by seven thirty or eight each morning, I am sitting down to pray and to read the Word of God. I don't tell you this to shame you, I say that to encourage you to do that and never to neglect time with Him every day. We have time to shop or watch tv or talk on the phone or play on social media, but have you spent time with Jesus? Do you spend as much time talking to Him about something as you do talking to others about something? These are good questions to ponder in your heart—and on that note, I am going to share a verse with you that Pastor Chuck read to us in the sermon Sunday, one that won't quite leave me alone.

But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them. Luke 2:19

There are so many things going on in so many of our lives right now, and if not in our own lives, then in this world we live in. Do you ever just observe all that goes on around you in any given moment? Do you sit and wonder how people ever get by without the hope of Jesus and the knowledge that His Word is true? I was out doing Christmas things with Dad yesterday and I had that thought. People were hurrying in and out of stores quickly and so few were taking the time to see the others near them. There was a sense of being frantic and as much fun as Dad and I had together, it made me sad to see that reaction in people. 

On the flip side of that, are you ever just completely overwhelmed with something that you know was a move from the hand of God in a certain situation? I witnessed such a thing just Monday night. I have a friend whose sister has cancer and had to go to Mayo Clinic for surgery and the outcome was far more than we had ever dared hope for or could even imagine. God provided a miracle to my friend's sister and to her family and I, along with many others, had the privilege of being a tiny part of it as someone who prayed for her the day of her surgery. We had the faith to believe that God could give her a miracle, but we didn't know if He would. When we don't understand why or why not God does something, I refer to that as His sovereignty. We don't have to understand, but we can know and trust that He is sovereign and we know from Isaiah 55:8-9 that His ways are far better than our own.

Do you ever wonder what Mary must have felt, the night she gave birth to Jesus, the Son of God that we read about in Luke 2? You can read the whole story in Luke 2:1-20. I love the verse above: she treasured up all those things in her heart and meditated on them. That word used for treasuring is from a Greek word that means to preserve or to keep close or safe. Why do we preserve things? We do that to keep them safe or to be forever preserved in time. Maybe Mary wanted to keep these things safe in her heart where she knew it would be forever preserved in time.

This makes me think of where we are right now in the time we live in. There are so many things going on around us in the dark world we live in and I have so many thoughts about all of it, but I keep the thoughts hidden in my heart and only those I am closest to know them. I talk to Jesus about them, because He knows what is in my heart and because sometimes I imagine Him sitting with me at my kitchen table while I have coffee and pray. I imagine my prayer as our conversation, much like I would have with my best friend. 

When I have this time with Him and pray these prayers and thoughts, I am keeping them safe in my heart for that moment, because I am waiting on Him to act and to make a move. I know and trust that He will at any given moment and I don't know what His move will be, but I have the faith to know and believe that He will help us through whatever happens in the future.

When my friend whose sister got that unexpected good report from the doctors there at Mayo Clinic, I know her heart was overwhelmed. Don't you know that Mary was overwhelmed with what was happening that holy night in Bethlehem? Don't you think she had many questions about what was to come? Maybe she had questions, maybe she didn't—but she believed and trusted in the Lord.

Don't so many of us have questions right now, in this present day?

I don't talk about my thoughts much, because they're reserved for Jesus. I can do that and leave my concerns and burdens at His feet and I trust Him with the outcome. When I pour out my heart to Him, He brings me peace that surpasses all understand (Philippians 4:7). When I talk to others about them, I find myself flustered and anxious.

Mary knew what had happened to her and she trusted the Lord because He sent to her an angel to tell her what would take place. She believed in her heart. She didn't have to talk to others, because she knew that what she had heard was true.

Today we have the Bible, which is the Word of God. John 1:1 tells us, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Faith is defined in Hebrews 11:1 as the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.

If you have faith that God is who His Word says He is, you have to trust in Him. If you have faith and when you trust Him, don't you long for Heaven? Our world is stained dark with sin and sin is what separates a sinner from God. The only way back to Him is through His Son, Jesus. Jesus is the Light of the world and He is our hope and our salvation. When I look around me, I long for a place I've never seen and I long for Jesus to return for us, our long expected King. 

I am going to leave you with some lyrics to a song I've had on repeat all week and the link to a video on YouTube. Watch the video and pay attention to the lyrics and turn it into your prayer, your praise and confession to God the Father and His Son, Jesus. 

Here is a link to the song and below are part of the lyrics to the song. 

Come, thou long expected Jesus

Born to set thy people free

From our fears and sins release us

Let us find our rest in thee

Israel's strength and consolation

Hope of all the earth thou art

Dear desire of every nation

Joy of every longing heart

Born thy people to deliver

Born a child and yet a king

Born to reign in us forever

Now thy gracious kingdom bring

By thine own eternal spirit

Rule in all our hearts alone

By thine own sufficient merit

Raise us to thy glorious throne

By thine own sufficient merit

Raise us to thy glorious throne

I pray these words, the song and the lyrics to that song are a blessing to you. Don't just listen, turn them into your praise to the Lord. He alone is worthy of all our praise, if you're a believer and follower of Him. Speaking of that, do you know Him? If not, don't wait! Reach out to someone today, none of us are promised tomorrow. 

Thanks for reading my blog, friends. Love to all. 

Jen.