homesick

I am truly homesick right now. I am have not been home since Christmas last year. My family has been going through a hard time back home. My dad's good friend Robert recently got diagnosed with Leukemia. This has been hard on my dad. And just this week the doctors found cancer on my step mom's thyroid. She has to get the whole thyroid removed.
I really just want to be home with them helping them. I am looking at flights right now and I am hoping to come home for a long weekend during Leona's surgery in October.
Please pray for my family.

embarrassment

Yesterday a friend needed to go to the doctors. So I took her. We were sitting in the room waiting for the doctor to come in when she realized that she forgot her purse. So I went out to my car to get it. When I came back in I walk into the wrong room. I opened the door and there was this man getting his blood pressure checked. Thankfully nothing else!!!!! But I was still so embarrassed! Mandy said when I got into to her room I was sooooo red!

the mouse

I would first like to dedicate this blog to three men; my dad, Ryan, and Eric. They have been there for me during bad mouse days.
Well last night I got this urge to deep clean my house. I finished Joe's room and the bathroom and was moving on to the kitchen. I was reorganizing my pantry when I discovered little frays of paper every where. A little more investigation and I knew my fear was true. We had a mouse. I cleaned it all up. But saw no sign of the little fellow. So I was thinking that he was long gone.
Then I heard it. Something chewing it was coming from in between my dishwasher and refrigerator. I let Eric know we had company. But since it was after midnight he was not sure what we could do about it so he went to bed. I was not satisfied. I didn't want him to chew wires to our dishwasher so I did what anyone would do in my shoes.....I got out the Ant & Roach killer. I aimed the can right in the crack and sprayed. To my surprise the mouse came charging out at me. I screamed like I never screamed before. And I continued to scream till Eric got out of bed and came to my rescue. The mouse was long gone...but where. I thought he went in Joe's room. That had me worried I was not sure who would eat who.
Needless to say I did not go back in the kitchen. I slept with a night light and I had nightmares all night that the mouse was in our bed or eating Joe.
I don't know why I have such a fear of a little mouse.

i made him cry

I woke up this morning and grabbed my Lambert's Mug and filled it to the brim with coffee...I knew it was going to be one of those days. Today I was a quizmaster for a Junior Bible Quiz match. My biggest fear was that I would make a kid cry. Well we were in round three of the day. It started when the quiz box started to go wacko so I had to go get another one and set it up. This added a little stress in the room. Then we began the match.
His name was Ethan. He sat in the Green one seat. He was cute as a button with his Drew Carry glasses. He had done so well the match before. In fact he had a quiz out. But this was not his match. He kept interrupting my questions but was unable to finish them correctly. Question after question I had to say I am sorry that is incorrect for a negative 5 points. At one point the coach called for a time out . At this point he had a break down. "I can't do this." he kept saying. And then it happened he incorrectly answered a question and quizzed out backwards. And the tears flowed. Followed by sobs. We had to finish the match and the whole time I kept hearing the poor boys sobs. I felt horrible. The crazy thing was he was still the high scorer for the round.
Well cheers to my first quizmaster experience in JBQ! At least it was just one kid.

the breakthrough

It happened tonight. The thing that I have been praying for since we have come to King's Chapel....the breakthrough. The Lord has just burdened my heart in the last week to talk about the heart. So we have been doing little studies on it through out the week. Yesterday I was preparing for tonight and I came across the parable of the sower. As I read the description of the different soils my heart became very heavy because I could see faces of our students as it described the hardened soil, the rocky soil and the soil filled with weeds. I knew this was what the Lord wanted me to preach on tonight. And so I did. There was no media, no drama, no amazing sermon illustrations I just read the Parable and then dissected it and let them respond. God's word is so powerful! Our students have never responded like this before. There was brokenness, repentance and God Dreams being birthed. It was a breakthrough.....as Mark 4 describes beyond my wildest dreams. Will you pray with me that the Lord will continue to do a work?

do I look like a man?

These are pictures from the latest Hillbilly Olympics here in Springfield. Up top you can see me and my young husband with our swine. To the left is me....Some people said these words to me on that day, "I never knew you could look so ugly. You look like a man."
I was going for the old lady Hillbilly. Do I really look like a man?

Taming the fly

The kids and I love to go on picnics. We bring our big waterproof blanket and go to a park. The strangest thing always happens when it's time to dive into the yummy PB& J sandwiches........every fly in the park is there. William and Kylie have become great fly tamers. At one point Kylie had three flies just sitting on her recently peanut butter covered hand. Right now I am getting rather annoyed at the flies that some how manage to get into my house. They make so much noise, they are always there when I am trying to have a peaceful dinner and they are so hard to catch cause they are just so quick. The fly really reminds me of my tongue. What a hard thing it is to tame. James 3 says:

7-10This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can't tame a tongue—it's never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!

10-12My friends, this can't go on. A spring doesn't gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don't bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don't bear apples, do they? You're not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?

What can be our Peanut butter that can help us tame our tongues? perhaps reading more of God's word than the gossip column. Maybe putting in that new worship CD instead of that newest song with the swear word every few minutes. How about talking about the latest thing that the Lord has been doing in you instead of what that person had done to hurt you????

So what is your Peanut butter? How are you taming your tongue today?