A Whole New Level

I went to the Joyce Myer Con. in Hampton VA this past weekend with Dana (sis-n-law) and 5 ladies from her church. We had a wonderful time! If you don't know about Joyce Meyer then you are missing out. She is a dynamic speaker who teaches you God's word, very loudly, with out trying to be nice about it. Meaning this: if you are listening, her goal is to step on your toes with her heels! She speaks the truth and doesn't worry about being PC. I so need to be taught that way!

Joyce is dynamic because she teaches based on her own failures and mistakes. She is very open and funny about how far God has brought her and where He is still teaching her.

This weekend's teaching was on the Fruits of the Spirit.
The 1st thing I learned is that Spiritual Gifts are given by the Holy Spirit and that Fruit is developed. Different gifts are given to different people for our enjoyment. So when I am tempted to wish I could sing like someone else or teach like them, I should stop and just enjoy the gift they received and be thankful that they are using it for God's glory.

2nd: I must practice Love and Self Control in order to produce any of the other fruits. Joyce taught that Love and Self Control are the "book ends" of the fruits. If you don't have Love for God's children and you don't practice Self Control, you can never develope joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and faithfullness.

3rd: 1 Peter 4:8 tells us that "love covers a mulitude of sins." In our life people have hurt us, wronged us, broken us down, and it will happen again. Our flesh wants to make them pay us back, undo what was wrong. Well, they can't. They may apologize and try to make restitution but they can't repay what emotional damage they may have caused. Can we ever repay Jesus for suffering and dying on the cross for us? Never. Jesus doesn't even expect us to. So who are we to try to make people repay us? That is up to God. Think of all the people you have sinned against, hurt somehow and you don't even realize it!

4th: If I call myself a Christian, then it is time to take that to a whole new level. No more acting like the world. I am to be a light that draws people to me, to God. This is going to be hard. Loving people as Jesus did is going to be hard. Taming my tongue is going to be hard. Practicing Self Control is going to be very hard. Going the extra mile is going to be hard. Someone please show me the verse that said this life would be easy.

I am tired of going from luke warm to on fire back to luke warm again. I want to be consistant in my faith walk. I want people to see Jesus in me all the time! I want to listen to and follow the Holy Spirit's nudgings all the time. I want to be different from everyone else. Now I have my chance.

If my tree is firmly rooted in Jesus and His word then I will bear fruit. The devil will attack, and I may bend, but I will not break. God promises me this. It is time to claim God's promises and start living them out.

Won't you join me on this journey? I assure you, it will be quite a ride!

I'm Famous!

Well, not really.

I recently hooked up with an old friend on Face Book. Isn't everyone? She lives in Cinci, OH now and read my blog about my roller coasters and asked if she could share it with her MOPS group. I told her sure, since it was on the web anyway.


Today she sends me an email with an attachment. It is their monthly newsletter, and my story is on the front page, with a picture of Courtney and me! I could not believe it. I am so excited! The reason I just posted that blog to get the words out of my head, my ramblings. Who could have known? I just hope that some mom will read the story and find some comfort or just relate to it.


I will try to attach the newsletter, I hope you can see it.

Roller Coaster Rides

I love roller coasters, the faster, the more they hang upside down, the better. Well here lately that has been my life. Some of you may know that When I took Courtney for her annual check up (11-4), we had them look at this lump on her ankle. Well they sent us for a x-ray (same day), one week later (11-12) to a foot specialist to look at it. He thought is was just a cyst, easily removed, but wanted to send her for a MRI (11-15) just to see exactly what it was touching. On Wed, 11-19, the foot Dr. called me to tell me Courtney may have a malignant tumor and he was referring her to Baptist Hospital. She was going to see the head of the Adult Orthopedic Oncology Department. Now, when he called me at was volunteering at the boys' school and just lost it.

I was so scared, I left the school and went straight to Paula's house and crashed for the day. There she let me just do whatever, play with Andrew, love on Ashleigh, talk on the phone as it began to ring constantly. I had to call Danny and tell him. I only told him and then Dana for the 1st several hours. I just didn't want to say it out loud, making it real. Dana did the reasearch on the tumor and found great info for me later in the day. As the day went on, I began telling people, asking them to pray for Courtney, me, and to put her on every prayer list they knew of. As our prayer request went out, I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of concern for all of us. My home and cell phone rang constantly and my email was overflowing. God was showing himself through our church family and our friends. Just Amazing!

11-25 our appointment at Baptist: Dr. very knowledgeable, told us he doesn't believe the tumor is malignant. They scheduled the surgery for 12-15 so Courtney only has to miss one week of school and then it is the Christmas break. They will remove part of the tumor and do a biopsy right there. If it is benign they will stitch her up and she stays the night. If they find cancer, they will remove everything around the area, even her skin. That will be much more invasive and she will be there for several nights. She would go back eventually for skin graphs.

We had so much to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. We enjoyed our time with our family and the great shopping on black friday! Yes Danny and I went out at 3:30am and were done by 8am, home and in the bed.

I have also had some of my own stuff going on the past 2 weeks. Some really high highs and some really low lows. It just makes me wonder what God is up to. I firmly believe Jer 29:11 and Phil 4:13, but that has been hard this week.

So now we wait until Monday. With a week in between these dr visit, we rested for a bit. Now reality of the surgery is back and I must make plans for next week. We don't know what time the surgery will be, so it is hard to figure out what to do with the boys. I am thankful for my mom friends who I can call at the last minute to get the boys.

This weekend will be crazy with 2 different Christmas cantatas and bell ringing and wrapping to do.

So as much as I love roller coasters, I have decided that I love them because the are over in 1 min and 37 sec. Not the ones that last for a month and counting.