9 or 10 if you count my dad

Just how many of them are there?

Her Guys

Framed and perfectly us. You’re not going to believe some [most?] of what I

tell you about any one or the collective of my guys. I wish I could start now; just looking

at their faces here, I see their hearts and I want to blurt out SO much about each of them to you, but

I’ll wait for a more pointed time to allow each of them to shine in their own way. Suffice it to say, if you

lived in my shoes (or if you’ve been close enough to step on my toes), you’d be yelling a hearty AMEN

to see this family selfie and to know my guys.

When  you add them all up, there are 10 if you count my dad (and we always count Dad), but here

you’ll be getting to know the closest three of those 10; and you won’t want to miss them!

‘Her Guys’…don’t miss this!

Her Guys

I don’t have time!

Ordering Our Life

Making a daily and weekly schedule

 

We are ALL spinning on a ’round and ’round,  twirling through life in a blur as if the sunshine was kissing our cheeks–

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And then we wake up. Frustrated. Overwhelmed. Going nowhere…absence of the sun, and more importantly, THE SON.

What’s a woman to do? Join me as we begin to order our days in light of honoring the Lord in our hearts, our lives and our homes.

Titus 2:3-5  …they should teach others what is good. These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands & their children, to live wisely & be pure, to work in their homes, to do good, & to be submissive to their husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the word of God.

Today’s discipline: is making a weekly/daily schedule.

This covers all waking hours, 7 days a week and is adjusted with each new week-sometimes each day- we are given. Already in this venture we’ve discovered where our time goes; kind of like a budget of time instead of money. Can’t lie, there were some eye-opening realizations and some very candid, confessions, if you will. Using this new information about our lives, it’s time to put on paper (or computer) where and how we PLAN to spend our time in the next 7 days.

In this Order Your Life series, we’ve already accomplished quite a bit:

*We have shared our top 3-5 priorities in our lives.

*We have kept a bird’s eye view of where we spend our time each day.

*We acknowledge the truth and importance of keeping the Lord at the hub in everything we do.

*We do the easiest job and make our bed before starting our day. (As long as someone isn’t still snoozing there!)

*We begin early with time alone with the Lord.

*We  make a concerted daily effort to show our children how special they are to us, and our husband how much we love, need and   want him!

*We discovered what our personality type is (it matters)!

*We are developing an AM Routine and a PM Routine to make our lives more orderly less chaotic.

I will post a sample daily/weekly schedule format and a link to download. You may have a similar one in your calendar online or on paper. The first thing you want to do is mark off every time block which is already committed with something. I homeschool my son, so I knew I would make unavailable school times right off the bat.  At the courtesy of insomnia, I get to sleep late (it’s 1:30 AM now and I’m here doing my thing), and you can usually find me snoozing between 4:30 and 9:00AM or later if I can. So, I’m not kidding anyone to do what looks admirable on paper and say I will be working away on my AM routine by 6:00. I won’t. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. We’re in different seasons of our lives, so of course our schedules will be different-vastly so. The only winners here are those of us who put together a God honoring time schedule which works for US. Be you!  (There, that’s feels better.) You can’t see it here, but every night I make dinner, we eat together, clean up and have family time, so I mark off those hours as unavailable. Likewise, when I wake up, my AM Routine takes the first hour and in the evening my PM routine does about the same-a little less time. Now, I can plainly see what I have left to use for everything else I need to get done.  We haven’t made lists and goals yet, but they’re on the near horizon. I hope you’ll join us back here for what’s next.

daily time schedule.pages

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He was my Perfect

My PA

Any day spent with you is my favorite day, so today is my new favorite day. Winnie The Pooh

A Favorite Photo

 One of my favorite photographs ever: Me with  Pa & my 2 oldest brothers. Still to this day 50 years later, this is a moment I remember. I still  feel the pure joy I had when with my grandpa. My smile tells it all. I urge you not to underestimate the good a great grandparent can do for a child and in a child’s life.

I couldn’t help but smile

So genuinely honest and pure; Pa was all that to this girl as I was to him (he said so) and I’ll never doubt it. If he was still here, I would still be right there sitting in the middle of  wherever he was and joyfully wearing that same smile.

I wish you knew him. I wish EVERYONE knew him. Those who did, loved and admired him.

But I adored him.

Before I knew God & He knew me,   I knew Pa. In my eyes, Pa was most certainly one of God’s best, and he was the most perfect gift to my life.

He was my Perfect

He was my perfect; I hope you have a perfect, too.

Father to the Fatherless

Today I watched a friend’s live video from her hospital bed. She’s on hospice and has been in pain for quite a bit. Thankfully today’s pain is being managed. Though she’s visibly weakening, she told us of a precious moment she had with the Lord from that hospital room. God, the One she has loved and served for many years, met her this morning in a way no one in her life had to this day. You see, I had perfect in my Pa, but she didn’t get that gift. Instead, she has lived her life with a torn heart longing for a father to love her.

But no more.

Now she knows that her Heavenly Father is the One who can pick her up in his arms and hold her tightly. She said, “He is the Father I never thought I had.” He is Father to the fatherless! (She goes on to tell her friends that she’s been asking the Lord to help her want to go to heaven knowing the painful thoughts of leaving those she loves so much here on earth.) It’s a hard place for a follower of Christ to walk the edge between earth and heaven in the dying times.) Her feeble voice continued, “Now, I want to go to heaven to be with Him.” God has healed her hurting heart and is lovingly preparing her to come to Him. Friends, if you’ve never witnessed this in your life face to face with someone you love dearly, it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense. Oh, friend, please don’t let unfamiliarity steal this joy from you!

The Glory of Heaven

What do we say about this life and eternity? Is our own heart prepared for glory and separation from all this world holds? Does Jesus know you? Tough questions to think about!

Jesus, the only perfect man

Of course my Pa wasn’t really a perfect man, because only one man has ever lived a perfect life. Jesus Christ: perfect, without sin, holy. And He is in heaven waiting for those who He knows to join Him. That is perfect!

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am. John 14:3

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.  Romans 8:18

But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” I Cor 2:9

Does Heaven Grow Sweeter?

I hear people say that Heaven grows sweeter with each passing of a saint. I don’t know about that; Jesus is pure love. Does it get sweeter than that? When God calls me home and we have no promise of tomorrow, I hope I can say as my friend did today, “I’m ready to be with my Heavenly Father.”

I hope you can, too.

Have You Seen Him?

Have You Seen Him?

It’s the morning after Christmas and I’ve been a bit under the weather, so I slept in some. As I was thinking about the Lord, sitting in the chair I try sneak in my quiet time each morning, I realized the sun had already slipped to the other side of my pretty window. I wouldn’t be watching its rise from the east nor shielding my face from its penetrating warm glow today. Not now at least.

With Christ’s birth fresh in my heart, I thought about beholding HIS glory. Creator God made that sun to rise in the sky each morning, to hang there throughout the day and set each night, and I-WE-get to enjoy it. I love most to be at the ocean and talk to the Lord; He feels so close to me when I am there.  Last year my brother took me out for an incredible dinner. He’s one of my best friends and for it to be just the two of us was really special. Making it even better was the sand under our toes and the sun setting front and center on the south west Florida coast. MAJESTIC! Dinner was relaxing as we talked and laughed with the calming ocean serenading us.  The dining area, both inside and out,  was  perfect; private without being confining.  Several rows of empty white chairs lined up to our right. I would suspect they were arranged for  sunset weddings or renewals, because how perfect can you get?  As the ball of orange in the sky dropped closer to the horizon, those chairs filled up. Some people had champagne and pearls, some wore flip flops and shorts. All were visibly enjoying life. Me too!  Before long there was no vacancy and 50 or more people had joined us basking in the glory of the sun setting.  I can still see it. And it’s still beautiful. Everyone with seeing eyes has seen the sun set, and I think most people enjoy it like me, but I suppose some ignore it too.  Yes, I think some ignore a beautiful sunset. I know, how crazy is that?  But not this night. Those people came to those seats, you know-like the movie says, “If  you build it they will come,” they came and I don’t think it was their first hoorah.  They came.  They sat, They watched. They chatted it up. They gasped. (Seriously, it was worthy!) ANNNNND, (this was new to me), they APPLAUDED!  Yes, all around me there was wooing, whooping and CLAPPING. All for the sun’s final setting of the night.   I was in great company because I was in the mix of others who enjoyed the son’s glory as much as I did. I do.

So, looking back out my  window and missing the eastern peek of this morning’s sun, I think about the baby born to Mary and Joseph; I think about Him, the one whose birth we’ve just celebrated.   My heart remembers what John, an “in real life friend” (imagine the miles put on their sandals to spend time with a  friend more than 2000 years ago!) of Jesus said,

 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,)    full of grace and truth. John 1:14

And we beheld His glory.

They saw Him.  But they didn’t just see Him, they beheld Him.  Catch the subtle but huge difference.  Seeing a beautiful sunset doesn’t bring applause; beholding it, does.  When is the last time you, and I, took the time to behold Jesus in all His Glory?

Watch the sun set and ask yourself, Have you seen Him; are you beholding  His glory?

For women at home

MASTER OF THE SEAPEACEHe still calms storms

He calmed the storm to a

whisper, and the waves of the

sea were hushed.

Psalm 107:29

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