Boojoyful

December 3-4 "The rewards are worth the wait." One of my closest friends has battled cancer for 8 years and during that time, God has graciously extended her the opportunity to see her children graduate from college, get jobs and her daughters be married. Now she longs for the day she will become a grandmother and is waiting and walking alongside a daughter with infertility issues and a very difficult pregnancy. Holding this baby boy in their arms will so be worth the wait. Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel. Luke 2:29-32 That passage refers to an spirit filled, elderly, gentleman named Simeon, who along with his Anna, spent his whole life waiting for God's promise called, the consolation of Israel. Salvation through Jesus. Simeon was ready to die in peace a

December 2 Of all the personalities in the Christmas story, being a mom, I think Mary is the one I relate to the most. Each time I study the scenarios she was faced with I am awed by her faith and joyful obedience. Joseph had a pretty good attitude himself. OK, so the angel encounters probably helped increase their faith! I can't recall the site where I saw this study, but under the Mary chapter was this quote: "Like Mary, we can move from anxiety to adoration." Mary had a great attitude, which birthed from her trust in the Lord. Look around your circle of friends, and rejoice and be strengthen through their faith in the forest. Luke 1:46-55 Mary’s Song And Mary said: "My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me-holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from gene

December 1 There is a peace that passes understanding available to us through our relationship with the Lord. One of the comforts of our faith is the realization that God created specific beings called angels to watch over us. And whew wee, do I look forward to hearing them sing! A favorite song of mine, "Amen" was sung as the recessional at our daughter's wedding. The artist, Debbie Forrest, has this chorus in the lyrics, "And the angels sang Hallelujah!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh6vol-AJWc Put on some Christmas carols today and be like the angels as you sing to the Lord! Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” Luke 2:13-14 I have a new project in the works...it is an "All About Jesus Tree". Will post soon.

November 30 Looking for a good study on Advent, I came across a Bible study, which could be downloaded for $20, on various songs that were sung related to the awaiting of the Savior. The four chapters titles themselves were free food for thought, so I wanted to pass these titles and their scripture references along this week for you to feed upon as you await the day we celebrate our Savior's birth. Theme One Zechariah's Song of Faith in Luke 1-"Even in silence God is at work." Giddy up horsie! We do not like to wait and when God is silent we initiate thoughts which bring his character and existence into question. Yesterday, I share a magnificent answer to prayer with a new believer...I left out the timetable...it was 5 years before that prayer was answered. Also, quite often we do not like to be silent ourselves and activate the instructions in James 1:19. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. The temple priest, Zechariah (fat

November 29 The best part of a daily devotional, beside the discipline, is getting into the Word and allowing the Lord to lead you. It is so exciting to see God take the same string of words and minister in a variety of ways to a diverse range of people. Where I thought we were headed today took a turn and instead I've nibbled again and again on the message in 1 Chronicles 16. My heart's desire has been to "be still" before the Christmas tree at least once a day, while it is up and truly keep Christ at the center of Christmas. This passage maps out a game plan of possibilities for our Christmas gatherings. I've placed in bold some of the elements we may want to include as we gather together with those we love in the name of Christ and celebrate his birth during this time of year, remembering how blessed we are to be Christians. 1 Chronicles 16 Ministering Before the Ark 1 They brought the ark of God and set it inside the tent that David had pitched for it,

November 28 He's making a list and checking it twice. That is what is said of Santa. God has a list too and He longs for your name to be on it. Referring to the New Jerusalem, Revelation 21:27 says: Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. As we make our Christmas lists, let's be sure there is something Christ centered in this season of waiting called Advent. Slow the pace and enjoy the people who God has placed in your life.

November 26-27 The turkeys, leaves and gourds are being packed up and one of our sons is taking the pumpkins out to the rifle range for target practice...more than likely that is where our pumpkin patch will grow next year. :) While we still have a little man power left around here, they are suggesting we put up the tree tonight and move into the season of Advent. My best friend is lying here on the bed beside me snoring away and may beg to differ! The intensity of the seasons of our love for the Lord may strengthen and wane, but the basis for our love is simple and remains steadfast in our hearts waiting to be ignited no matter the season of life. God is love. 1 John 4:16 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 4:10

November 24-25 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. Psalm 100:4-5 NIV Hope you take a few minutes to click on this link and sing a couple quick hymns of thanksgiving. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3dXCL34aEA Challenge yourself or those with whom you've gathered, to take the letters in thanksgiving and share a scripture which highlights a word beginning with that particular letter. Also, take the letters and name things or individuals whose names begin with that letter that you are thankful for. T- Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding...Pr. 3:5 H- Now honor the LORD, the God of your ancestors, and do his will. Ezra 10:11 A- H e will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully...Luke 4:10 N- The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing . Psalm 23:1 K- Know theref

November 23 Does your home have a gathering room? Terminology changes over time. If you are shopping for a home your realtor my show you a home with a bonus room, a keeping room, a great room, a hearth room...probably won't refer to the parlor anymore, but they may rave about the gathering room. More times than not, I think the kitchen becomes the gathering room in homes! Wherever you gather this Thanksgiving, remember God has designed you for a purpose and has something for you to offer! You may have baked a pie, brought flowers for the table, be the lap to hold a baby, the one to take out the trash or maybe you will be sitting by the bedside of a loved one, simply holding their hand in a time of need. 1 Corinthians 14:26 So here's what I want you to do. When you gather for worship, each one of you be prepared with something that will be useful for all: Sing a hymn, teach a lesson, tell a story, lead a prayer, provide an insight. Psalm 111:1 Hallelujah! I give thanks to

November 22 Me oh my...holiday time can be stressful. Whether out shopping, traveling or having a houseful, apply these four "real simple" steps to your life, as you face the hustle bustle of this time of year. Cast, forgive, trust, and rejoice! 1 Peter 5:7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Matthew 6:14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

November 21 Here are some "real simple" life changing concepts in addition to the 10 commandments. Philippians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Deuteronomy 7:9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. Zephaniah 3:17 The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing. Romans 8:39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 1 Corinthians 2:9 However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” — the things God has prepared for those who love him—

November 19-20 The name on the caller ID read...."Real Simple". Had I not been the recipient of a year's subscription to this delightful magazine, I am not sure I would have had a clue what was behind this call. With that term "real simple" on my mind this morning I thought it would be fun to challenge you this weekend to select some scriptures that you find to be real simple! You know, cut and dry. As we enter this week of Thanksgiving, maybe you will want to print off some of these verses and put them in a basket to share with others and simply thank God for the Word he has given us. I will try to post more as the week progresses. Email me some of your choices. Here are a few real simple steps to becoming a Christian: 1) Admit you are in the "all" category. Romans 3:23 f or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God 2) Accept the gift God has so graciously provided. Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eter

November 18 And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit . Acts 13:52 Rubbing face cream into my dried out old skin, I looked at my wrinkle lines and thought...."I wish this cream could just fill in the cracks!" There are cracks in our souls...actually, for many there are craters...empty spaces achingly causing us to feel incomplete, so we tackle the tactic of fulfillment taking up the wrong tools. Food, drugs, alcohol, exercise, shopping, promiscuity, pornography, books, movies, work, volunteering, fleeing...grabbing for whatever seems to be the most enticing technique to take away the God given void designed with the intent of drawing us to Him. We can poor water, peanut butter or perfume in our fuel tanks, but there will be no acceleration from our vehicles. For our lives to run smoothly, we need to feed our souls the right food! For years in our kitchen I had a glass jar of rocks and a glass jar of sand. It was a reminder that if I put the big thing

November 17 Traveling through the rain and fog yesterday I made my way to the city to purchase some bedding for what we hope will eventually be our overflow bedroom again. (It housed 2 sets of bunk beds and 2 trundle beds, had an extra mattress for the floor, so we could sleep 7). We are giving away our 25 year old bunk beds to Habitat for Humanity and simplifying the room, but the process has not been simple. Trying to save a buck and take advantage of the Veteran's day sales has about done me in online and in the stores. Finding 3 matches sets of sheets, shams and comforters hasn't been easy. Then you add matching colors and I've finally realized this is not of eternal value and bought white sheets! Reading in Jesus Calling this morning, I laughed. "Be content to be a simple sheep." I read it "simple sheet"! I am not content with the condition our home is in right now....but I need to learn to be! Trouble and anguish have found and taken hold on

November 16 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Mark 12:30 A friend and I were studying in Beth Moore's Breaking Free study and came to a session on God's love and our love for God. The message was very convicting as it challenged us to ponder if we loved God in the way He calls us to love him with a deep, sold out, reverent, agape love. Looking into John 21, where three times Jesus asks Peter if he loves Him, Moore explained that in the first two references Jesus asked if Peter agape loved him. Peter's responses each time were that he phileo (brotherly love) loved Him. When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” John 21:15 Moore made the point that we can follow Christ and love Him with a brotherly love and slide along through life life or we can be radically sold out and love

November 15 The restoration process in our home project has been a daily roller coaster. Someone will say they will show up and then either call to cancel or just not come at all. There is one contractor who has been here seven days a week, plodding away at everything from tile, plastering, plumbing to electrical when a sub doesn't show up. Walking into the room where he was putting drywall onto a ceiling late yesterday, I told him the latest news that a tile helper had just cancelled. With an amazing attitude he said, "Old Reliable" is right here! Immediately, I thought of the Lord's ability to be omnipresent in our lives. We can be quick to feel abandoned, but in reality our Creator is right there with us, waiting for us to acknowledge His presence and our need for Him. The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Deuteronomy 31:8 God is faithful ( reliable , trustworth

November 14 The digital clock shines out an orange glow stating it is 2:36AM. Whether it is a hot flash, the severe pain in my lower back from injuring it once again, or the anxiety of the mess our home is in from this SLOW restoration, I am not sure, but I've bagged praying I can go back to sleep and decided to get up and hang out with the Lord. As my eyes opened they looked up to the ceiling and saw where the moonlight shining in through the windows had caused a couple of the blades from our ceiling fan to make a peace sign on the ceiling. God was reminding me, "I am your peace." Jesus Calling warms my soul as I read "As you sit quietly in My Presence, your awareness of My Life within you is heightened. This produces the Joy of the Lord, which is your strength. I, the God of hope fills you with all Joy and Peace as you trust in Me, so that you may bubble over with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. These are the verses, from which this paragraph was taken. Tw

Couple of our boys wandering around Lake Tahoe The yard I like to wander around! November 12-13 I laughed when the Lord put the phrase "prone to wander" on my heart this morning! This time of year in Franklin County, VA people like to wander through the woods and hunt. That is why it is not a suggested time for construction work, because many of the workers wandered off the jobs to go hunting! :) It's a dead give away that a student has wandered off the path to school if there is a deer hanging out the back of their pick-up truck! The hymn Come Thy Fount of Many Blessings has a lyric which says we are prone to wander and leave the One we love. It is so easy to walk away from God. The Israelites had gotten so good at it, that God left them to wander in the desert for forty years. In our day, there are so many tempting offers calling us to set God aside and pursue self. Take a look at what four Bible authors have to say about wandering and commit this day to stay clo

November 11 Wikipedia defines Serendipity this way: "when someone finds something that he wasn't expecting to find. The word has been voted as one of the ten English words that were hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company. In the simplest of words, it means a "happy accident" or a "pleasant surprise". A young woman who has been coming here the past couple weeks for encouragement found something yesterday. I am not sure what she was looking for, but she found Jesus and prayed, asking Him to come into her heart. W00t! Woot! It doesn't get better than that! We have a Christian comedian coming in from California tonight who is performing at the Christian School where my husband is head master. What a pleasant surprise it would be if he was an excellent tile worker, dry waller, plumber, and painter and was elated to knock out the rest of our restoration work here on Saturday before his show! Whew, looking over my prayer list,

November 10 Startled by something unknown, I awakened at 1:30AM. Looking out my window the stars were shining brightly in the sky. "Come Before Winter" is the phrase on my mind. Huh? I remembered a Charles Swindoll book, copyright 1985, by that name and began to hunt for it this morning, hoping for more insight into this thought. Hmm, our son and his wife live in Minnesota, maybe we are supposed to go visit again before winter hits! :) The sub title of the book is Come Before Winter and Share My Hope. Opening the book to its center I peered into to see if the devos were laid out by date. They weren't but the one I opened to was "Tough Days". It intrigued me enough to read on. Swindoll recalls the the quote..."Cheer up, things could get worse." He says, "So I cheered up-and sure enough, things got worse!" Also, written down is "My mother told me there would be days like these, but she never said they would run in packs."

November 9 Here's something that happens all the time and makes no sense at all: Good people get what's coming to the wicked, and bad people get what's coming to the good. I tell you, this makes no sense . It's smoke. Ecclesiastes 8:14 In my home town there was a local amusement park. What I thought to be one of the worst rides was called the egg beater. I never entered either of the cages on the ends of the axle, because I had heard a rumor a snake was found in one of them once. That did it for me! The operator was used to hearing screams coming from that ride, so even if someone was screaming "snake" I doubt he would stop. There are occurrences in this topsy turvy world which we need to be screaming "stop" over, but the fear of what others might think, the fear of repercussions, or of losing a friendship often keeps our mouths shut to the destruction we see around us. The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness

November 8 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble . Psalm 46:1 The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Deuteronomy 31:8 The word from the Lord yesterday morning was "window". Taking that to Biblegateway, none of the 27 verses in the NIV seemed applicable. (Lordy, lordy, none of the three rooms which are demolished here have windows...pray, tell,....we are not supposed to put in a window are we?) Certain of there was some relevance to the word, I decided to search The Message and there were to verses well worth chewing on today. A person without self-control is like a house with its doors and windows knocked out. Proverbs 25:28 Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your w

November 7 If you read Sunday's devotional "Getting Real", you are aware I was hoping to be able to skip today and get on with the mess we are in. I wasn't skipping my quiet time with God, just you all! :) Opening today's devotional in Jesus Calling my jaw dropped with the confirmation on those pages. Yesterday, I'd referred to the "letting go of control" lesson I sensed the Lord trying to teach me. Today I read: "I am working My ways in you: the divine Artist creating loveliness within your being. My main work is to clear out debris and clutter," (you have got to be kidding me) "making room for My Spirit to take full possession. Collaborate with Me in this effort by being willing to let go of anything I choose to take away. I know what you need, and I have promised to provide all of that-abundantly! Your sense of security must not rest in your possessions or in things going your way. I am training you to depend on Me alone, fin

A Hunting we will go! Love this picture of our grandson gearing up for his first hunting trip. The new template is a bit much. I will work on toning that day later this week.

November 6-7 Sundays are normally my day of rest from writing, but to be perfectly honest I'd like to write to say I am permanently signing off. Instead of making an excuse and fa la la ing saying I'm just going to chill this week and enjoy the fall leaves, I am going to be real, because that is why most of you say you read this blog. Working steadily along, I've been excited about Thanksgiving and most of the children being home. Having everyone together is so much fun and I love getting the house ready for the holidays. So therein lies the target zone the enemy likes to hit...the house and family hospitality. What began as a simple shower remodel, expanded into two complete bathroom remodels when damage from a leaky toilet was found. A tile man told me to call the insurance company who would cover a great deal of the cost and that he could have this job complete by Nov. 11th. Last week was a bummer as the tile man backed out on the job, the wrong tile arrived and the

November 5-6 Remodeling bathrooms is one big mess. A lot of tearing out needs to occur first and that process is really messy. There have been times I wished we had never found the leaky toilet and damage, but I know we must persevere and the end product will be much better than what we had before. Sound like anything familiar in our own lives? Remodeling resembles repentance! Repentance is not enjoyable, but brings about a refreshing, resuscitated end product. So today we allow Jesus to access the damage we have created in our souls by allowing sin in. Whether it takes chisels, saws or wrecking balls we lay ourselves bare for the reconstructing process to begin by tearing out the old mess and making a new creation! Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 2 Corinthians 5:17

November 4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4 Picking up Jesus Calling, yesterday I was so encouraged and had to take a dose of the very same ministry medicine that I had dished out to a friend the day before. Whew, wee...I am so thankful for those life lines that Jesus tosses to us! I thought the trials of the day before were a downer, but yesterday the level of intensity deepened in the "life isn't far" discouragement category and I started to sink...ok, actually weep. An insurance adjuster came to the door and was rather aggressive and intimidating at first. I looked at him and said, "I have a young woman in a crisis downstairs, a friend whose grand baby just had to have his head drilled into and they have found a brain tumo