I Can’t Resist A Good Challenge!

Bill, you never cease to amaze me! God bless you my friend. Reblogging this so others can understand more why a cure needs to be found. Been reminded of you daily as I see how many are participating, even children. Everyone, please donate any amount if you can and even if you are unable to donate, please pray!

Unshakable Hope

Ice Bucket Challenge Donations Top $100 Million in 30 Days compared to $2.8 million during the same time period last year (July 29 to August 29).

Mary looked at me like I was crazy when I told her that I wanted her to dump a bucket of icy water over my head.
“You might gasp and breathe in water and choke,” she warned. But after a few days of prodding she finally agreed to play her roll in the Ice Bucket Challenge. I was hoping that the ice cold water being poured over my head would cause me to jump out of my chair and run, like my Australian friend, Phil, but (SPOILER ALERT) unfortunately that didn’t happen.

Seventeen years ago, almost a year after being diagnosed with this horrible disease known as ALS, I was asked by MDA to participate in the local portion of the Labor Day…

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Sunny Side Up!

Found this hint on the Fitbit website this morning.  Not sure if it works but it sure is worth checking out, especially on the beautiful sunny day we are having here today! 

I’m having fun with wearing a Fitbit Flex to record how many steps I take, levels of exercise, calories burned, etc, and even the quality of sleep I get each night.   Along with it I am using the free App My Fitness Plan to record what I eat each day. Purpose of it, of course is to better monitor these things and determine where I need to make changes and to motivate myself.  After losing a lot of weight (almost 60 lbs) I slacked off, especially on the exercise, when my knee began to worsen, bringing me to have surgery to replace it.  In the process of all that I sadly gained back some of what I had lost.  It is well past time to be getting back on track with diet, exercise and hopefully improving my poor sleeping. I was surprised to learn that I wake up more times during the night or am restless more times than I thought I was! 

This thing showed me definitively what I already knew–that I needed to get back to good exercising so I recently joined the local recreation center in my town.  Nice to be able to now use the treadmill and/or elliptical machines and I look forward to exercising in the swimming pool and perhaps trying out some water aerobics classes!   

Praying daily for God to give me strength and guide me through this process.  I know from experience if I don’t put it in His very capable hands, I set myself up for failure every time!   Thank you Lord for being my biggest encourager by placing people and circumstances in my path to  get and keep me motivated! 

Conversations

A lot of wisdom in what Skye says here. Great reminders for all of us. Asking you all to keep Skye in your prayers as she deals with the pain she is suffering!

Prayer and Renewing Your Mind–God’s Message To Me Today

Ever have one of those days when the same messages are repeated several times and from several different sources?  You just know that God is speaking directly to you, am I correct?   Today was one of those days!  

It actually started last night before I retired for the evening.  I felt like I wanted to write something in my blog, but per usual, despite many thoughts and activities over the past few days, I couldn’t think of a thing to write!  I went to bed wondering aloud (translated= whining probably) to God about why that was and what could I do about it. What could I write about?

Fast forward to this morning (Sunday), starting with the Ladies’ Sunday school class.  The gal teaching today did a lesson on renewing our minds.  “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:2)  Her lesson definitely caught my attention, as it should!   What does it mean to renew our minds?  Positive thinking? Sure, that is a part of it, but it also means replacing our worldly knowledge and “logical thinking” which is rarely true, if ever, with the flawless and unquestionable logic/absolute truths of The Lord.  How do we do that?  By being in His Word daily, memorizing scripture and keeping it in our hearts and minds for ready availability when we drift in other directions.  Of course prayer is a big part of it as well.  I know I have not done full justice to the Sunday school lesson as she taught it.  There is much more that could be said, perhaps a topic for another blog post someday.  Needless to say, though, the Lord started getting my attention.

Next, we go on to the morning service and Pastor was preaching on the subject of prayer! Instantly the light bulb came on in my head!  The Lord was getting my attention again!  Of course, Pastor shared a lot about prayer–more than I could write about in this simple little blog post (it was a great message!) — but what immediately came to mind as he talked about prayer  was, of course, that the very first thing I should be doing is praying for the Lord’s guidance with my writing and with everything else in my life as well.  But I’m human, and we humans do usually think we can take care of things ourselves and use prayer as a last resort! It is amazing how many times I have experienced the truth that if I take it to God, He will guide my words and my actions!    Ever seen those commercials for V8 vegetable juice where the guy hits himself in the head, saying I could have had a V8?  Well coming to the realization that I could pray first instead of last is one of those kinds of moments!   I know better but I just don’t do better!

After the morning service, we had our annual church picnic in a park, followed by an afternoon service in a lovely little wooden chapel at the park.  It’s always a fun service with singing old choruses that I remember from childhood, lots of testimonies, little kids singing and then one of the men in the church will bring the message.  Well this is where the third message from God came into focus!   The man bringing the message talked about his testimony  and had a great deal to say about renewing our minds and about prayer!!!  This many times in one day to hear the same message, some of the same Bible verses, same ideas, etc., definitely has a way of smacking you in the head.  I almost felt like I could hear God saying “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?” 

I had spent the afternoon thinking about the earlier messages of the day and wanting to sit down and write about them when I got home this evening.  Imagine my surprise when I heard the same basic message being sent my way a third time!  Wow!  Thank you Lord for using these three people to get my attention. I was convicted by all of the messages!  You got my attention Lord!  I know that as you say in the Bible, you WANT to answer us when we pray, especially when we pray your will.  One of the things Pastor said was that we lament the things going on in the world but we don’t pray about them.  I think that is also true when it comes to our personal lives as well.  God will help us gladly if we just pray to Him!  

1 John 3:22 (KJV) ²² And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

 

The Tale of the Frozen Flying Chicken, or —

 

 

how not to break a toe!   Okay, I have not lost my mind!  No I haven’t!  This is a true story and I have shared it with  a few people over the years.  Looking at this in a humorous way definitely helped at the time with the sudden pain of  a broken toe. Trying to find humor in things really does make life better. Hope this makes you laugh today! 

Many years ago, I lived in an old house with my husband and children.  This was not your big fancy Victorian houses or a Painted Lady, but just an average home built for employees of a nearby brickyard but since converted into a two family home with one apartment downstairs and one upstairs.  At the time of this story I lived in the upstairs apartment and to get to the basement we had to go outdoors and down the stairs.  In that basement was our laundry area and hubby’s workshop area and we had an old upright freezer.  Key word for this house and this freezer?  OLD!  Old equals unlevel cement floor on which sat an unlevel freezer!

Now add to this the fact that I have the habit of running around barefoot in my house. 

One bright sunny day I decided to go down to get something out of that crooked freezer on the crooked cement floor.  I was in a hurry so I ran down to the basement without my shoes on.  That did not help matters at all.  You’ve heard about shoot first and ask questions later?  Well it was kind of like that analogy.  I quickly pulled open the freezer door without thinking of consequences first. 

On the top shelf of the freezer I had a few frozen whole chickens sitting very nicely on the flat shelf apparently minding their own business.   Or so I thought!    WRONG!!!  One of those chickens got a bit over-excited at the sudden burst of daylight and decided his chance to escape his frozen prison had come and he quickly decided to take advantage of that.

He decided to fly  to freedom!   And while he was at it, inflict damage on that creature (me) who had imprisoned him!  You got it!  He dove towards my bare feet on the concrete floor, aiming perfectly at my second toe!  Bull’s Eye!   He landed right on one of the joints of that toe! 

Oh my goodness!   I saw stars!  The toe immediately swelled up into this monstrous purple appendage, throbbing with pain!  Yep!  It was broken all right!  Who knew chickens were so evil???    I got even with the mean little critter, though.  He became a pot of chicken soup for the next day’s supper!  My toe?  Well for over a week at least it rested itself taped to the big toe for lovely support and was surrounded by a soft slipper since a shoe was not to decorate that foot for a while. 

The chicken lives on in infamy whenever we have cold, damp weather because he left behind the lovely gift of arthritis in that toe. Ouch! 

Moral of the story?  Don’t trust a frozen chicken in a crooked freezer on an unlevel cement floor while walking barefoot!   LOL  They will get you every time! 

“Just Write” ?? Really?

I read a post tonight written by A Opinionated Man entitled Just Write.  http://aopinionatedman.com/2014/08/19/just-write/

Jason commented in his post the following  “I simply write when I feel like writing and I feel like writing all the time.”  As I read his words, I couldn’t help but think how much I like to write and feel like writing all the time too but the difference is that I am never sure what to write about that others might find interesting or enlightening.  Of course that is my lack of self-esteem speaking; or is it my ego that doesn’t want to be crushed if nobody likes what I write?  

“Just Write” says Jason. “Don’t think so hard about it”    Sounds like good advice to me!   There are many things I think about in the course of my days as I go about my daily activities, whether it be the  Bible study I am participating in or something I have read in a devotional or my Bible.  Sometimes it is about the current state of our country, our world, politics.  I think about the things I would like to get accomplished in my life now that I am pretty much settled in after my move.  There are many more things I could add to that list.   Any one of them I could be writing about and there may be somebody who can relate to my thoughts and ideas. 

Okay, I think I need to pay heed to what Jason wrote in his post and challenge myself to write something every day.  I almost added the words “if possible” but decided that I was already setting myself up to come up with excuses to not write–Defeats the whole purpose of my challenge!  (yes, I am good at that!)

I’m just going to put it into the Lord’s capable hands.  Whenever I ask, He is more than happy to lead  and guide me and give me the words to share with others.  He is there for each and every one of us, if we but ask!   So here goes, Lord!  It’s you and me, on a quest to write almost every day.  I cannot do it without you! 

Thank you also, Jason, for your motivating words. 

Memory verse for Today

Good morning everyone!  It’s a beautiful Sunday morning, though chilly and cloudy but its the Lord’s day and the sunlight will be shining in our churches this morning as we worship our Lord and Savior.  God says we should “hide the word in our hearts” and I thought I would share a great memory verse today.   Been too long since I have done much more than reblogging the wonderful words of other bloggers.   This is the verse that made me smile this morning and God does love it when we smile!   Laughter and smiles are one of the best medicines we have! 

ENJOY YOUR DAY!!!  I hope to begin sharing more thoughts soon, now that I am more settled in my new home. 

 

I love You~I also may be Smart Heart Smart Loving You

I believe we all have those people in our lives who we love but who have hurt us, but regardless we still love them because God says we should love thy neighbor. I like these words from Michelle that we love smarter and wanted to share it with you all. Thanks for this post Michelle Marie!

Tell Me About It

Art by MichelleMarie

I believe the hardest choice to make is how we respond to adversity. How we respond to the unlovable?
Those in my life that don’t realize the affect they have on me. There are those that are selfish, mean spirited, rude, just down right unfriendly. Those that are beloved in my life, it’s hard to respond in love when they have hurt me. How do I love someone that continually crosses my boundaries, tests my faith, makes me wonder why I love them? I choose to respond with a Smart Heart, to Smart Love them.

We are never told to love blindly, we are told to love with patience, endurance, long suffering…but never blindly. Loving with a Smart Heart,Smart Lovedoesn’t push the person away but a Smart Heart,Smart Love knows when to reel it in and dial it down a few notches and…

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The Father’s Love Letter (To You) !!!!!!

The best love letter ever, from God who loves us all so much.

And then the sun rose…..

A lot of wisdom in these words!