Breast and Ovarian Cancer

My mother was a breast cancer survivor.  Her 79 year old sister now fights this demon.  Both were determined to live and not die.  As you know, my mother passed away a little over a year ago, but not from breast cancer.

Check out what DIYDish is doing to raise money to fight this monster!!!!

Post #300... A Post of Thanks!!!

*********Thank you to the two ladies that participated.  Congratulations to Angie!!!!!!!  And Nabila I need your address as well, I have a little something for you to!!!  Love you ladies!


]Here is a picture of the pouch I made the other day!  I had loads of fun making this and plan to make several more and put them up in my shop!  This one contains all my Scentsy mini testers...

I've been wondering all day what I would post about.  Did I have something monumental I wanted to share?  Would I share what my family and I have been up to?  What about what God is doing in our lives?  Well, I contemplated over and over and finally just sorta gave up the thought.  Suddenly I knew exactly what I would post about.  Today's post is full of Thanks for those that mean so much to me or have inspired me in some way.

So without further ado, Let's begin...

I've met some awesome and wonderful people via this thing we call the World Wide Web.  I've met some friends that have become life long friends, more so than some of the people I know in person...there are a few exceptions of course.

Kelly, she has truly become a dear sister to me in my life.  She lives not far from us and we see them as often as we can, she has a heart and passion for her family.  11 arrows make up their clan and this family shines forth with the love of Christ.  She has prayed me through some very rough times.  I'm forever grateful for our friendship.

This could be said for the next few ladies as well.  Angie is a jewel.  I met her when we were both part of a tubal reversal group many years ago.  She has been a delight and her family has become my family.  She too has prayed me through some dark times.  Sandra another jewel.  She has inspired me in countless ways.  I admire her hunger and thirst for God and her family.  I anxiously await the day we will get to meet in person.  The first time I ever spoke to either of these ladies, I knew in my heart that we were kindred spirits and God had a purpose for bringing us together!!!  I still feel that way. Love you both!

Then there is L.  She is an amazing woman that has a fight within her beyond my understanding.  She inspires me to step out on my faith day after day.  I also can't forget Diane, Lady Kara, and Nabila....these women make me want to live such elegant yet content lives.  They inspire me to be ME!!!  

I love y'all to pieces!!!!  Thank you for being YOU!!!

Now the next few people I will mention, I've never met or talked to, but they inspire my creativity.  I've watched EVERY video they've ever posted, Read EVERY blog post they've written, and gone to their websites countless times.  I pray that as you check out their sites, you too will be inspired in some creative way!!!

Vanessa amazes me with her talents.  You can check out her youtube channel here, her blog here, and her website here.

Missouri Star Quilt Company....I've learned countless techniques and I love their shop (wish I could shop there more often, but you know how it goes).

And then Pat inspired me to just step out there and try free motion quilting and I did.  And guess what????  I loved it.  I'm just getting started, but oh the places I could go.  Oh wait, this isn't Dr. Seuss!!! HA HA  She has inspired me to at least try.  

I pray you will stop by their sites and take a look for yourself.  You won't be disappointed with any of the above mentioned blogs, shops, and so forth.  

Check out my amazing friends as well.  Ummmmmmm, I just don't know if I want to share them though! LOL!!!!  You will find that they are awesome just as I do.  

And I suppose you've been waiting for me to get to the give-away???!!!  Well, not to disappoint you, scroll down a bit further.  Go ahead...

I want to bless someone with this nursing cover up.  It's in browns and blues.  It has a nice size pocket for binkies and keys.  I made this one with a little extra fabric because it just seemed more modest.  You could win this for yourself or a gift for someone else.  And if you keep looking further down, you will see an adorable wipe case that has been decorated so cute and all.  I don't have this specific one, but if you look to the right and look at that fabric, I will decorate one using that print and embellish it with a monogram for that special babe.  These would make delightful gifts.

Ok, so how can you win this?  Well, if you will host a Scentsy basket party with me gets you an entry.  Commenting on this blog post gets you another entry, then if you will post about this giveaway on your blog, that qualifies you for 2 more entries.  Now each time you do one of these things, you must come back and let me know and by Friday, March 25th, I will announce a blessed winner!!!!

Ready?  Set??  GO!!!!!!!

     

Productive Day

The first half of the day was not so productive.  I stayed in bed much later than I should have, but I so enjoyed it immensly!!!  Then I was in a lazy mode and let my son go in the grocery store to purchase the groceries.  He did an awesome job and I'm proud of him!!
Then I took some time to sort through my Scentsy testers and took out all the discontinued scents.

The most fun in my day was some free motion quilting I did and making a quilted, zippered, pouch.  I've never done either of those things and let me tell you, I had the most incredible time.  I watched several videos and followed along and WOW!!!!  All my fears of free motion quilting and putting in a zipper just melted right away.  The zipper technique was beyond simple and the free motion quilting...well it looks like a 3 yr old scribbled all over the fabric, but I had major fun scribbling.

I'll post a pic tomorrow of the finished project.  I have to make another one and will take pictures as I go along through the steps.   Then I'm going to tackle a quilted laptop cover!!!!

By the way, I'm one post away from 300 posts!  I find that hard to believe.  So I'm going to host a give away for my 300th post.  Keep an eye out for it......

I so enjoy giveaways

http://ajoyfulchaos.blogspot.com/2011/03/family-life.html

Joyful chaos is giving away a year subscription to an Amish magazine.  I want to win it for all the lovely recipes I'm sure to find inside.  

My Mother's Cup & Saucer

My mother was a coffee drinker.  I began drinking coffee at around 4 yrs of age.  My brother would wake up every morning and make me a "watered down" cup before he headed off to school.  Around age 10, coffee became super nasty to me and I stopped drinking it.  It could have been that I had to awaken every morning for school and make my mom her first cup of coffee before she could muster the energy to get of bed and get ready for work.  I don't know, but now I wish I could make her one last cup of coffee.  Within the last 5 years of her life, she began to look at her china in a very different way.  She began to use it for every day use.  Her thought was, I have these beautiful things here and they get no use, when I die, someone else will have the privilege of using them.  So she began to use her things of beauty.

Every morning, I knew she would have the cup above filled with coffee and she'd sip on it like a lady....dainty and sweet, never gulping.  If it was too hot, she would pour the coffee from her cup into her saucer and blow it gently and then sip.  Her father drank coffee the same way and she taught my children to drink their first cups of coffee in that same manner.
 
Well, I had a dream the other night that I was having a cup of tea with her while she was sipping her coffee.  So I asked my sister if I could have her cup.  Now each morning and right before I go to bed, I sip on a cup of tea in her cup.  It has put a smile on my face each morning to look over on the table and see her cup there from the night before.

It truly is the little things... Now off to have my cup of tea!!!!

Jesus, You are Lord of ALL

scroll down and pause the player on the left before watching this video!

I know, that I know, that I know, that God is up to something good in my life. I don't fully understand all He is doing and I don't comprehend why He has to do it the way He is doing it, but I know that God only wants His best for me and I can't settle for anything less.

As I sit here reflecting on the song above that we sang yesterday during service and meditating on the words of the sermon, I know that God is stronger and able to do anything.

I won't and can't lie that these times have been hard, but I can say that through all of this, I am learning so much about myself and even more about my God.

He loves me with an unfailing love. When I am doing things He would not like for me to do or in a way He would not like me to, sometimes His Holy Spirit will speak to my heart and correct me; other times, He allows me to continue going forth, knowing that I must experience the repercussions from it to expand my growth and trust in Him.

A dear friend asked me recently how do I do IT? How do I go on trusting, having faith in, and walking with a God that would allow all that has happened to me? How do I not get angry? How do I not walk away? I've been chewing on those questions for days now and God has been formulating a response, because I never adequately answered that question.

I can say that I DON'T do it. I DO/HAVE gotten angry. I HAVE walked away. My trust has faltered, my faith has deteriorated, my walk is/has been shaky. I cling to this....that God knew me before I was even conceived. He knew everything about me before the beginning of time. There is NOTHING about my life that catches Him by surprise. Yet He still loves me. As parents we can tell our children something over and over again and then we know that after telling them so many times that sometimes they will just have to experience what we are saying to fully understand. Take for example, a hot stove. You tell your toddler don't touch, it is hot and yet he doesn't comprehend what that means. Then one day you are not in the room and he touches that hot stove and screams out in pain. You run to his rescue because that's what you do as a parent. As you are comforting him, you say gently, lovingly, that's hot. That's why mommy told you not to touch. Well, we are not any different. Sometimes we have to go through things because we are basically thick skulled and don't get the picture at first. What about those things that we think are just a bit harsh, like a husband walking out, or struggling as a single parent to make ends meet, or the loss of a loved one? He allows those things to happen to build your character and your walk/trust in Him.

Stop and think about Esther or Joseph (Pastor Evans talked about these two yesterday). Let's start with Joseph. He was the most loved by his father. ALL was going right in his world. he was dreaming big dreams and rubbing it all in his brothers faces. They hated and despised him. They wanted nothing to do with him. It was so great that when they saw him coming, they began to plot to kill him. Then they devised a plan to throw him in the pit, then to sell him. They thought they were rid of him forever. But keep those dreams in mind. How was God going to pull that off? He already had the plan going before He gave Joseph the dreams. So he's sold not once, but twice and ended up in Egypt. HA right smack dab in the middle of where God wanted him to be.

Notice, in Genesis 39:2 it says that THE LORD WAS WITH JOSEPH!!! (Remember Heb. 13:5)

He's now Potiphar's right hand man. Second only to Potiphar himself! Potiphar's wife accuses him of rape and he's sent to jail. He becomes the jailers right hand man. He later becomes Pharaoh's right hand man and is put in place to be able to feed his people and be reunited with his family!!! Now if we could ask Joseph if he enjoyed all the different valleys he had to travel through, I don't think he would say he enjoyed them one bit. I don't think he would say oh, being put in the pit was fun and being sold into slavery by his own brothers was an amazing experience, or that being accused of rape and going to prison was the highlight of his life. HOWEVER, He NEVER EVER lost His focus. His focus was not on those two dreams, his focus was on His God!!!! Genesis 41:16, 25, 28, 32, 51. He mentions God at all times!!! And though his focus was not on the dreams, those dreams did come to pass!

Esther was a beautiful Jew! She was placed in the kings palace and became his wife. Haman was planning to kill every Jew he could get close to. The king was unaware of his wife's heritage or Haman's plans. Queen Esther basically tells her uncle she can't go to the king and tell him who she is, he'll have her killed....after all, she was livin' large and really enjoying things as they were. Yet her uncle says to her don't think more highly of yourself than you ought, just because you are in the palace, you are still a Jew and you too will be killed with the rest of us. You weren't placed in that palace for your own pleasure, but for a time such as this...to save your people!!! To which she says, you know, you are right! I gotta do something and if I perish, I perish. Now we know Haman gets hung on the very gallows he had erected for Uncle Mordecai and that God's will was still accomplished.

My point is that GOD in His wisdom and power, orchestrated every minute detail of Joseph and Esther's lives for HIS WILL and GLORY!!!

What He did for them, He is doing for me as well! He's doing it for you too. We HAVE to go through the valleys of life to get to the next mountain top. HE promised us in His Word that we would have tribulations. HE also promised that HE would walk with us through those times. Yes, there are times when we can't see His hand nor feel His presence. There are times when we truly don't understand, but that is also because we don't know what the end result is. And we make the mistake of thinking the end result is for US!!! It is not!! Joseph's end result was not for his fame nor prominence, but for God's people. Esther's beauty and queenship was not so that she could be lifted up out of the horrific life of the Jews, but for God's people. Your trials are not solely for your growth, but for the testimony they will leave behind for your children and family, and for those that are watching you and you don't even know it.

Does that make any of it easier to walk through? By no means, but then He also said if we keep our focus on HIM, HIS WAYS, HIS WILL, He will remove our burden and carry it for us.

God promised us He would provide our needs, but He never said it would be what we wanted. Our needs....Food, Clothing, Shelter. That food may be oatmeal for what seems like eternity when you really would like to have a steak. Clothing may be from the thrift store when you would really like to go to the department stores in the fancy mall and buy brand new. That shelter, well, it may look like mine. It may be run down and beat up, and each room may not be usable, and the pipes may leak, and you may long to be in a nice brick home. He didn't PROMISE things would be rosy, but He did say to be content [satisfied and at ease where you are in spite of your circumstances].

That contentment doesn't come easy nor automatic...it has to be learned and the way He teaches contentment is by allowing us to go through the positives AND the negatives of life. Your focus will determine your contentment!

Is. 40:31 Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.

WAIT for the Lord

Gain new strength.

Soar over and through the trials of life depending on God.

You will run and not get tired.

You will go from running to walking but you won't get weary!

He said it, count on it, lean not to your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths (Prov. 3:5-6)...even through the valleys!