Quiet Time

I'm off to church with my boys. 

Hope you have a wonderful Sunday!

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Quiet Time

I'm home with sick kiddos today but I'm wishing I was with my church family!

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Hope you have a great day!

Quiet Time

Quiet Time and hard days

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The past few weeks have been tough ones and my heart is heavy. 

Three weeks ago a couple very close to us suffered a miscarriage. 






 Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
Psalm 73:23-26




  Last week a friend of mine lost her 8 month old baby boy. I'm devastated for her and her husband and their three year old daughter. 





Isaiah 43:1-2
But now, this is what the LORD says—
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze




The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18



I've been holding my sweet boys tighter this week. 

Every time Isaac gets up to nurse at night I spend the time praying and more often than not crying for my friend and her family. Although they have hard days ahead, I know that the Lord holds them in His hand and that is such a comforting thought!




When something bad happens, the sovereignty of God is a very hard truth to accept, because if he is in control of everything, we wonder why he has allowed this universe to be ordered in a way that causes us pain. But when we begin to think that "the God I know would never allow this," we have taken our first step toward discovering that God is not who we think he is. That is when we can begin to explore the wonder of his sovereignty. Though God's sovereignty can be hard to accept, it is also a soft place to land. It is a rock underfoot when the winds blow in our lives. It confronts what seems absurd in our existence. God's sovereignty is our greatest hope as we face an uncertain and unknown future.

Some days we praise God not with exuberance, but through tears. Some days we praise him not with complete clarity, but with many questions. Some days we praise him not with gratitude for what he's given to us, but with gratitude in spite of what we've lost. Our difficult circumstances do not call his character into question. We know that he is wise and powerful and good, and we praise him for it—continually. In fact, in the darkness of our lives he shines brighter.
-Nancy Guthrie

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Psalm 73:26

 "My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart
    and my portion forever."

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Jeremiah 29:11-13
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

Hope you had a blessed Sunday, despite losing an hour!  ; )

Quiet Time

From one of my all time favorite hymns, Great is Thy Faithfulness.

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Wishing I was at church instead of home with two sick boys and a sick husband this morning!

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It's only fitting to use these verses on Love this morning because my youngest brother and his girlfriend got engaged last night! I am SO happy for them and excited for Beth to join our family!!

I love you both, Congrats and God Bless your lives together!!!!!

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Quiet Time

  Today is the Sanctity of Human Life Sunday.

 (8 weeks after conception)

Psalm 139:13-16 

" For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well. 

(12 weeks after conception)

 My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 

(16 weeks after conception)

Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be."

(22 weeks after conception)

 "Fight against the kind of social stupor that gripped Nazi Germany — the feeling that the problem is so huge and so horrendous and so out of our control that I just can't be wrong to let it be. Use your imagination to see and feel what is really happening behind those sterile clinic doors.
  

If you could see each little handiwork of God and what it looks like when it is being crushed or poisoned or ...starved, you would say, this can't be happening! Civilized people do not do this! The children will not be saved and God's work will not be reverenced without an act of sustained sympathetic imagination. Otherwise it is out of sight, out of mind — just like Dachau, Buchenwald, Belsen, and Auschwitz. It just couldn't be happening. And so we act as if it isn't.

If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, "Behold, we did not know this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your souls know it, and will he not requite man according to his work? (Proverbs 24:10–12)

-John Piper from here. 

This video is a little more than 30 minutes long but I urge everyone to watch it!

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For those who need some hope for the new year!

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Praying that you will know His peace this Christmas season, the peace that passes all understanding!

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Sorry I'm a day late......my computer was having some issues yesterday. Hope you all had a great weekend! 

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 Trust and Obey

When we walk with the Lord
In the light of His word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will,
He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.



Trust and obey, for there's no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.



Not a burden we bear,
Not a sorrow we share,
But our toil He doth richly repay;
Not a grief or a loss,
Not a frown or a cross,
But is blest if we trust and obey.

But we never can prove
The delights of His love
Until all on the altar we lay;
For the favor He shows,
For the joy He bestows,
Are for them who will trust and obey.

Then in fellowship sweet
We will sit at His feet,
Or we'll walk by His side in the way;
What He says we will do,
Where He sends we will go;
Never fear, only trust and obey. 

Trust and obey, for there's no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. 

How true this classic hymn is!

Jesus help me to obey without asking questions or doubting for you are trustworthy and sovereign!

Quiet Time

To say that the last two weeks have been tough would be a MASSIVE understatement! We've had croup, sinus and ear infections make the rounds, which has kept us home from church for the past two weeks. : ( The Man has worked a lot of hours, I have gotten little to no sleep. And conflict has been EVERYWHERE!

However,this morning on Facebook a sweet friend reminded me of this:

"If you think your life is bad just remember that there are people that have it WAY worse than you.... And you should be thankful for all the blessing that GOD has given you".... 

It was a small smack upside the head that I really needed today. I mean hello, the entire Eastern seaboard has it way worse than I do right now, not to mention everything else going on in the world. I have tunnel vision sometimes and only focus on myself (don't we all??). I'm so thankful that God is patient with me and gently reminds me to humble myself!

So, thank you to my friend Tara for posting and Lord please keep me ever mindful of the needs of others.

And to those of you affected by Irene, I am praying for you today.

Psalm 138:7
Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes, with your right hand you save me.

Psalm 46:1-2 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.