Friday, January 27, 2017

Comparing Ourselves to Others

I've recently started a new hobby.  I've joined  the League of adults who like to color. In other words I like adult coloring books.My husband also has gotten into coloring books too.
I've been enjoying adult coloring books and it's very relaxing.
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
My post that I started on Wednesday evening was interrupted by a medical emergency. My husband was having chest pains which turned out to be a mild heart attack. That's very scary because he has never had heart problems. He had an angiogram last evening  which showed some blockage so a stent was put in. We are so grateful because it could have been much worse.
He came home today and he is doing well. He's a bit tired but he is happy to be home. He's on medications for his heart and blood pressure and it is recommened he change his diet. I've been thinking about making healthier meals for my family anyway.

We eat a lot of unhealthy foods so I need to change that. Even small changes like reducing salt intake, less fast food and switching to whole wheat flour.  So if you think of it please pray I can come up with healthy meals for my family.  Please also  pray for Tim that his heart will fully recover  and no problems with the stent.
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

Now back to my original post I mentioned that Tim and I have gotten into adult coloring books. Tim has been encouraging me not to focus on trying to to be like everyone else when it comes to this new hobby. I really am trying but I made the mistake of going on YouTube to search for ideas on coloring books. I found myself looking at various videos and thinking, I can never make my coloring pages look like that! I was getting somewhat discouraged but I realized the Lord doesn't want me or any of us comparing ourselves with others. Each of us is unique with different talents and abilities. So while I may get some great ideas on shading and choosing colors, I shouldn't be worried my pictures aren't "perfect" by YouTube artists standards. I want to just have fun! I'm applying the same idea to my crocheting projects which reminds me I need to get back to the baby booties I started a few days ago.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

Daddy and Kitty

Here is Kirstie enjoying being held in Tim's loving arms.

Spiritual Check Up My Answers Part 2

So I want to share my answers to the last five questions I posted a few days ago. But before I do that I want to go back to question 1 about worshiping well with others. Our pastor reminded us today that worship is not just about the music. It's about spending time with the Lord giving Him complete reverence. An active response to God. I'm not sure where we got the idea that worship is about the music only. Perhaps it could be because we call those who lead us into song "worship leaders" or "worship teams"?   Maybe they should be simply known as "song leaders" or "music directors". I don't know. I guess I'm just rambling.

Okay, getting back to the topic here are my last 5 answers.
6. How much joy do you have? I gave myself an 8 though I could have given myself an 9. I like to consider myself a joyful person but let's face it. There are times when I just don't feel joy. When things are going badly I want to crawl under the covers and wait for things to get better. Then there are people who are joy suckers. You know who they are. The ones who are always negative and never have anything good to say. I'm part of a online community who have such people. There will be a sweet picture of a child doing whatever kids do and someone will say something negative like  "That child shouldn't____"" Or why is he/she doing ______?" I've come to the conclusion these people are just negative and honestly don't have any joy in their lives.

7. Are you a loving person? I scored 8.  I would have loved to say 10. I hate to admit it but there have been people in my life and in churches I just don't like. There are celebrities I just don't like. That's no excuse though for not loving them. I think the people we don't like are the ones who may need our prayers the most.

8. Do you have peace in your life? I said 9. I have more peace now thanks to devoting myself more to prayer and God's Word.

9. Are you a patient person? I'm extremely embarrassed about this one. I gave myself a 3. I get impatient waiting on the Lord for answer. I get very impatient with people who want to argue the validity of the Bible. Truth be told, I have wanted to tell them how stupid they sound. But there was a time before I became a Christian, I was "ignorant" of the scriptures and well, I said stupid things.

10.   Are you kind towards others? I scored 8. Over the years that I have been saved, I realize I want to treat others the way, I want to be treated. So I try to be kind. Even when they are driving me crazy and I've lost my patience with them, I want to be kind. I really want to try better to be "Jesus with skin on."

So that's my check-up for this year. There are areas from this check-up I need to improve and grow in. Lord willing, next January, I hope to be doing better.

Friday, January 6, 2017

Spiritual Check-up My Answers

Yesterday I posted questions from our sermon that was done on Sunday so I'm going to start with the first five questions this morning and the remaining I will get to later today or tomorrow.

  1. Do you worship well with others? I scored myself an 8. I really love getting together at church for hearing the word and singing. Our church has three services. The first one is traditional with hymns and piano. The second is a mixture of both with added guitar and violin. The third is Rock the Flock. It's louder, has drums and almost no hymns. We go to the second as a compromise because our teen and adult daughters want more contemporary songs. Tim and I like hymns. I personally prefer just singing and no instruments.
  2.  How well do you grow with others?  I gave myself a 6 on this one. Though I enjoy going to Bible studies, getting involved in fellowship groups, I'm painfully shy so that affects my spiritual growth but I'm doing better than I used to be.
  3. How is your servant's heart? I decided I was an 8. Since we are new to this church and getting to know people I'm helping in the nursery once a month. That's the one thing I really enjoy is helping with the little ones.
  4. How is your (out) reach? I have to give myself a 1. I'm not good at sharing my faith because of being shy and fear of rejection.
  5. How generous are you? I scored 1 on being generous. It's not that I'm stingy with money or my resources, it's just I don't away have it to give.

To be continued at a later time.

Thursday, January 5, 2017

Spiritual Checkup

On Sunday the sermon was called Spiritual Check-up:10 Questions for a New Year. I will post the questions and perhaps you ladies can check your spiritual health. You don't need to post your answers. Just take some time and ask the Lord what He would work on. So on a scale of 1-10 how would you rate yourselves on the following questions


  1. Do you worship well with others? Acts 2-46-47
  2. How well do you grow with others? Acts 2:46
  3. How is your servant's heart? Matthew 20:24-28,Phil. 2:3-4
  4. How is your (out) reach? Acts 1:8
  5. How generous are you?  2 Corinthians 9:7
  6. How much joy do you have? James 1:2
  7. Are you a loving person? 1 John 4:12-21,Romans 12:10
  8. Do you have peace in your life? Matthew 11:28-30, John 14:27
  9. Are you a patient person? Ephesians 4:2,James 1:4
  10. Are you kind towards others? Ephesians 4:32,Colossians 4:6






Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Our New Family Members

Meet Kirstie and Dodie! Our nine week old tabbies. Aren't they adorable? We adopted them from a car shelter. They are twins so we didn't want to separate them.

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Happy New Year 2017!

It's almost one in the morning here. I'm finishing up a movie with my hubby. Spirit of St. Louis with James Stewart.
I want to post my goals for the year so here they are:

Faithful to reading my Bible each day. This will include my devotional Bible reading plus my reading plan

Devote more time to prayer and time with God

Be kinder to people who post mean comments on a blog I follow. I noticed that I either get snippy or sarcastic. That is not how a daughter of God should behave.

Take more walks in my neighborhood. I may even be brave to take short walks in the snow if it's a light snow

Do more sewing and crochet projects

Lose some weight.


Moving My Blog

 After still trying to figure out the subscription thing with MailChimp and never having success, I've decided to go ahead and use my Wo...