The Day Before

I would really love to be uploading more pictures onto this blog, but that will have to wait until Friday, one of my OFFICIAL days off that I take each year.  There is another one, but I can’t remember when it is, I think may be January first, yes, that is the other official day off that I take….    Obviously I am due for one!

It is the day before Thanksgiving when we will have 24 here for dinner and more by the end of the evening as our single guys will come here for desserts.    I was planning to eat dinner around 1-2 on Thanksgiving but then realized that there was a Packer game to contend with.  Don’t you think these game organizers could ask a woman when the best time for a game would be on a national day of feasting??  WHO puts a game at 12:00????     There is no way I would want to have everything ready for a feast let alone be eating it by 11:00.  That is TOO early in the day and we do not eat the Thanksgiving meal in front of the game…. no way!    I bravely suggested to Rick and the girls that we could eat at 1:00, that they could miss a little of the game and be done eating in time to watch the second half.   Let’s just say that there were no words needed to express their opinion on that idea, the looks were enough.

SO…..  we will have folks over to watch the second half of the game and when the game is over we can then start our Thanksgiving meal.   It will be fine.  Packer games do bring out a fun time, well, that would be IF they win  :)

I am not ready!   I have been without a washing machine for one week.  I have been staining and varnishing the new windows in our living room.  On Monday when I took a look at the living room I decided that since everything was off the windows that I may as well paint the living room while we are at it.  I don’t know, call me the denial queen….. others have   .   So my sweet husband went back to the hardware store with my color swatch ( I had been to the hardware store 2 hours before but did not realize at the time that I was going to be inspired to paint!)  and came home with two gallons of paint, commenting that he hoped it was the right color in a dubious tone.   I, still in denial mode, plowed ahead with my plans and after finishing the staining went into paint mode.  I started on the biggest wall and after a few rolls of paint started to feel a sickening dubious feeling come over me as well.  My color, Maple Leaf, was looking more like lemon souffle and I was worried.   My sweet daughters bravely commented on how the color could work, it might not be so bad, maybe a second coat will correct the problem……..  yikes!   I knew that two trips to town was one over our allowance so I was not going to be going in to get a different paint.  I decided to NOT doubt myself with the color, to trust the sweet man who mixed the paint and pray blessings on him while I painted.   By the time we were on the second wall it was starting to look the color I had chosen, a light golden wheat.  By the third wall I was thrilled and everyone (except Rick who was being Switzerland) agreed that the color was perfect!   I finished the second coat at 8:00 Monday night.

I was really on a roll yesterday until Rick told me that my second coat of polyurethane could not be put on for 48 hours.   I thought he had said 4-8 hours and had envisioned putting the second coat on last evening, putting trim on today and then hanging curtains up and rearranging the living room to have it just perfect for company.    ENUNCIATION is everything!!!!    Now I am envisioning having the trim on but no curtains.  It is a good thing that this will not matter to our dear friends.  Someday (coming soon) we will have a house with siding all the same color and lights on the porch and a few other things finished.  We will not know how to act!

So today is cleaning….   all the corners that are a mess from focusing on the window work.  Getting the school-room ready for Matthew, dealing with some laundry as it is beginning to pile up and getting the kitchen and menu up and ready for the morning.  What fun……..  Rick is going to put the trim on around the windows.  It is raining outside and I have a bad feeling that some cutting will need to be done IN the house.  I guess I will do the dusting last!

On Friday I will put the last coat of poly on and maybe later that night hang the curtains.   I will also add photos to this blog as we watch Little Women, a Thanksgiving tradition.

So much to be thankful for…

Blessed, even in the chaos!

Joyce

Casting Crowns concert

Below you will see many pictures from a recent Casting Crowns/ Matt Redman concert that came to Green Bay.  I have to tell you about the surprise that God gave me with this concert.

First, I enjoy going to concert that are about worship, sometimes I go to big multi-group events and I am reminded that there is indeed a difference between entertainment and worship.  As for me, I have seven children and a funny husband so I get all the entertainment I need at home!  I want to worship with the body of Christ, a little taste of heaven before we get there!

Here’s the thing;  I ALWAYS get fantastic seats, ALWAYS!   I am spoiled by God over and over again with fine seats every time I attend a concert.  After all these years I am used to sitting right up front where the music is not only heard, but felt, right in the heart region.  I love it.  I know I may be deaf earlier in life but I figure it will be worth it!

When I heard about the CC concert I really wanted to go.  Matt Redman is one of my favorite worship leaders and I have used his music for years in our services at church.  The girls wanted to see him because he has an English accent…..  anyway!   I was so busy and I did not call to get tickets, and the concert was at the end of the fishing season and I did not know if it would be a good time to be gone.   The concert was on a Thursday night.  On the Monday before I felt ok to go and Rick said yes.   Since the concert was being held in a smaller and fancier performing arts hall I knew there were limited seats, I knew what would be available would be in the third balcony.  The tickets were not cheap as it was a fund raising event, cheapest were $30 with anything down on the floor and up front at $100.  So………. I called to order my cheap tickets through Acts 1:8 ministries.  I had to leave the tickets at the will call window to be picked up the night of the concert and they couldn’t tell me where we would be seated.  Oh well, I thought.

That night we arrived and I got our tickets from will call.  I went to one of the ushers and they pointed me NOT to the stairs heading up, but toward the doors for the main floor.  I thought this could not be correct but went and stood in line.  When we were allowed to enter I gave my tickets to an elderly usher who started leading us toward our seats and as he did he commented that we had really great seats.  I honestly thought that he was not reading the tickets correctly and that we were going to be seated in the wrong seats.   To my amazement he walked  down to the second row to the right side of the stage.  Literally 6 feet from the stage.  I could not believe it and we were all amazed.  All I could do was praise the Lord.  It was so fun to thank Him right there and then I promised Him that I would praise Him really well because that was what I was there for!!!  I know He likes it when we praise!

All I can tell you about the concert is that it was one of the top 3 concerts I have ever been to.  The concert was 3.5 hours long of which we stood worshiping for most of the songs.  It was the highest praise and adoration of our God.  CC has songs that are heavy in spiritual warfare and to hear 3 thousand from the Kingdom singing together was powerful to say the least.  The leaders spoke and challenged us and ministered with words.  They have redone some hymns that were stunning.  It was a fantastic night of praise with guitars and drums and violins and cellos and flute and piano………. and voices.

One of the beautiful parts of the night was watching my girls worship.  I know worship is very personal and intimate but part of the mystery of worship is the drawing in that witnessing another worship does.  It was so beautiful to see my girls respond to the Holy Spirit at different songs, sometimes with full voices blending with the rest and sometimes with hands raised, adoring their Heavenly Father.  I am so thankful to have children who love to worship and worship unashamedly.

It was a great night.  God surprised me again, blessed this daughter of His with second row seats so she could worship in her “comfort zone.”  He is so good, He is a detail God who cares about everything including where we sit at concerts.  He is so worthy of our praise and worship.  With all my heart I believe that these worship events going on around the country are because God want to hear us singing to Him as He prepares to return to get us……..  can’t wait.  I am ready.

If you have a chance to see CC with Matt Redman, go, you will not regret it.

Blessed today and singing His praises

Joyce

Casting Crowns — 2nd row seats, Annie was letting me know she was WAY over her quota of pictures for the night!

Matt Redman and Casting Crowns, and incredible night of worship!

I would love to say that he was pointing this at me, but the truth is that we were sitting behind a row of adults with special needs. I have never had the privilege, and I do mean privilege, of watching these precious folks worship their God, our God, together. It moved me to tears many times, and drew me in as well. He was definitely wanting their voices, purest praise from innocent hearts. God be glorified!

Puzzles …. Fall 2009. We enjoy putting puzzles together and here are some of our accomplishments so far this fall. Butterflies and the bird puzzle which is one of my favorites. This is supposed to be a family activity but they broke the rule and finished the bird one while I was in Tenn.. I think I need to let that go… :)

Gotta love a child with an inner hippy who is not afraid to express it!! She is so me, which of course will add more grey hairs on her poor father!

Gracie time. We enjoyed having this sweetie all summer. She is a precious little girl. Sorry some are blurry, and yes, even a two year old loves to do chores!!!! :)

Fall fest fun

Rick’s father made Kristi a hope-chest for her 19th birthday. It is beautiful and such a treasure and future heirloom. What a precious gift!

Sweet brother and sweet sisters. They always fight over who gets to sit next to him. They sure squish him in :) !

This picture is because of the plant… I have not had a plant in our home for over 15 years. We are surrounded by trees and have a large overhang on our roof eliminating lots of sunshine. I have killed many plants in the past, but, when I saw this on sale at our local store I thought I would give it a try. Somewhere I have a crocheted plant hanger that I am SURE I have not thrown away as it is total hippy which I love! If the plant lives another 3 weeks I will really search and find it. So far so good and it looks pretty and amazes me!! :)

This is our finished bathroom from the summer saga of not having a bathroom for weeks. It turned out beautifully and the girls have enjoyed it very much.

This is our fall tradition of waxing leaves to use as decorations. They turn out so pretty and last for a long time. It does mess up one candle holder as you can see, but we use it over and over again. We use melted bees-wax which has a delightful smell as it melts.

The famous Northport Rd. dressed in fall colors.

Matthew’s new truck….. sweet ride, he actually let me drive it last week!

Beautiful Door County Sunset

Some days ……..

Yesterday started out beautifully.  Rick headed out to work at the usual time with full lunch-pail and having had coffee and oatmeal.

I have to explain the oatmeal because I KNOW you are all wondering????

The other night, just as I was falling asleep, Rick asked me if I could make him oatmeal to have with his coffee in the morning.  This was an unusual request because oatmeal is healthy and my man will eat the healthy food that I put in front of him (well, most of the time ), but he NEVER requests it.  I have never heard him ask me to make that healthy chicken with roasted mushrooms and garlic or request the whole wheat pasta instead of white.  Just saying. This startled me so badly that I sat right up in bed and asked him WHY?   In my mind were only thoughts of him having suffered chest pains recently, his blood pressure rising, concerns of some kind that made him think eating healthy would alleviate the problem.    He rolled his eyes at me, well I was facing his back so I can not verify this but I am pretty sure  ;).  He responded by telling me that lately the new vitamins I have him taking are upsetting his stomach and he thought a little cereal would help!   I was so relieved.  I offered him my home made granola but he declined. That’s hippy food and one hippy (guess who) in this family is enough!  So making oatmeal has been added to our morning routine.

After Rick left for work my dear friend Kari came in and we had coffee by the fire and had a prayer time together.  She has eight children and we now have seven  so you can see how we need time for prayer!  :)

Bible was wonderful with the girls.

Took Melody to the dentist…  no cavities!  Only child of ours to reach 11 and not have had a cavity.  I think we may have to buy her a car….  just kidding sisters.

School was wonderful.

Then we started to do our cleaning chores.  I decided to do all toilets and our tub with Rust-Out.  I cannot do it often because it is toxic and bothers my lungs but with the breeze through the windows I thought it would be a good day for this job.    We got all the bathrooms looking beautiful and then I left for a cleaning job.

I came back from the cleaning job to find Rick digging a trench from our well casing along the side of the house.  We had had water pouring out of the well for weeks but had recently thought that maybe something else was the problem.   Sure enough, about two feet down it was evident there was a crack in the pipe between the well casing and the house.

Thankfully Rick is a man of may trades and talents.  He went and got his dad’s back-hoe and started the process of digging to find the pipe.   That is when he called me out to help.  This is when I started to wish that  I had paid more attention to plumbing things when we have built the addition.

Rick told me to watch as he dug so that he did not snag the pipe with the bucket’s teeth.

I panicked because I had no clue to what size pipe he was talking about, and I wanted to ask if it was a certain color which would have make it more visible, like bright yellow, or hot pink?  I didn’t ask, I just started praying.   Being in Gills Rock with the key work being ROCK, you can only imagine the scraping and jerks as huge rocks were dragged out of the hole.  My heart would lurch as I hoped that the grating sound was not the pipe being yanked from the well.  Rick would dig with the back-hoe, dig with the shovel, dig with the back hoe, dig with the shovel,  I think you get the picture.  I would watch, forcing my eyes to stay open as I usually shut them when I am nervous, then run down into our creepy crawl-space to give Rick other info that he needed.  You can be proud of me because I refrained from giving any advice during the whole procedure, none what-so-ever.  I think Rick appreciated it but I can’t verify that either.  :)

At one point, a thin tubing came up and Rick thought it was the gas-line.  He yelled to me to go shut the propane off at the tank.  My blank stare told him that I knew nothing about propane tanks.  They are on my list with chain-saws, weed-wackers, battery cables and steering a fish tug straight.  Sorry, no-can-do.   It ended up being a strange ground wire.    60 years ago they did things differently.

Rick found the leak with the pipe intact, isn’t God good?   He called his good friend Paul to discus what to do only to find out that it was Paul’s anniversary and so he was not able to come over, good man!

So I then figured out I was through being Rick’s right-hand-woman and went into scrounge around for something to cook for supper that would not use water.  It was an assortment of items, all good and basically Mexican.  The bummer was going into the house to bathrooms which were spotless but unusable and a kitchen that did not get cleaned and so the sink was full of dishes.  Oh well.

We survived the night with no water, minimum flushes and using toilettes on our hands.

This morning Rick and I sat in the dark coffee-less, I offered hot-chocolate but Rick has never been real fond of that drink.  I could have offered granola and milk but, you know how he feels about that!

So another adventure with living with Rick, Commercial fishermen by day, plumber by night!

Blessed, to have electricity even without water because my man does not do electricity.  Everyone has their own No-can-do!

Joyce

Dad at rest. He told me that he spends lots of time praying as he lays there. I am sure that we will never know the blessings that we have been given because of these prayers. Dad and Mom together. Lacey giving her grandpa his vitamins. She loves her grandparents and is such a big helper.

What it takes to feed a small tribe! Lacey being girlie, she is a princess!

Dad and Mom

Me and my Dad. Hugging, reading the Bible together, showing off the Packer socks.

This is love. The pictures below show one of the deeds of love that my Mother does on a daily basis, and it is no small task. My Mom has learned so many medical tasks simply for the ability to care for my Dad at home, where he wants to be. We are all thankful for the new lift which has made the transfers so much easier. The transfers are still tricky but Mom has learned and does a great job. Sometimes there are helpers. :)

The Haven of Rest

I just returned on Tuesday night from a quick surprise trip to see my Dad.  God was good as always, and I booked the trip including a car for half the price of what it had been for the last 6 weeks.  God said to go and then He gave me a deal!   God is a detail God!

I arrived and walked up on the porch and hugged my Dad.  He was surprised and teared up, asking me “what in the world are you doing here?”  Mom was in town shopping and so we sat on the porch with Guy and the kids talking until she came up the drive.   I went into the kitchen and hugged her.  She had known it was me on the porch by my hair.  I thought for sure that she might think it was Angela…….     The sweetest words from her were “How did you know I needed you to come?” and then for two days I heard “I need to pinch you to see if you are real because I can’t believe you are here!”  So much fun.

Dad was in good spirits and we spent the 2.5 days talking, digging in God’s Word singing by the piano and my feeding him Uncle Tom’s peanut brittle.   He was precious, so very precious.   Jeni had called with a question about death and so Dad and I went through the scriptures about death and I taped him explaining the end of life for a Christian.  ( I hope to figure out a way to have that on here soon)    He would give me scriptures from memory, minus the reference and then I was to find where it was in the Bible.  Now I know why I can’t remember references, I got that from my Dad!    The beauty of God’s Word calmed, brought joy, answered questions, blessed, encouraged and brought truth to the present situations of our lives.  Oh how good God is to have left us with His Word.  I cannot thank Him enough for having His Word written down….    We talked about the way Dad will most likely pass as the infection spreads into his body.  Hard words to speak to someone I love and adore so much, EXCEPT, that I could speak with complete assurance to my Dad that heaven is his REWARD!   I could not believe the sense of joy that came over me as I spoke about heaven to my Dad.  He already knew all the verses and everything I was saying, but it is real for him as he lay there listening.  It was a moment of my faith hitting the pavement called death and being able to know that everything I believe is REAL and I have no doubt about what God’s Word says.  My Dad has repented of his sins, lived with Christ as his Lord and Savior and has served God out of love.   God’s Word says that to he who overcomes is given the crown of life, my Dad has overcome and shown faith all of his days so the crown of life is waiting.  That is good news folks!

There is one thing my Dad said that will stick with me forever, he said “I am going to heaven and you make sure that you and yours will meet me on the other side, this circle is to be unbroken.”   In my logical brain I was saying to myself “well, that is the job of the Holy Spirit …..)  but I knew what my Bible believing evangelical father was saying; teach the gospel to my children, for it is the good news unto salvation.  That is what Jesus said we are to be doing here on earth, teaching and sharing with everyone, not just our family.  Spread the gospel, making disciples.   My dad did that well, showing hundreds the path to salvation and walking them into the Kingdom.  His mantle falls on us, on my children, but it is a choice to pick it up.  Dad knows I have chosen that mantle, not to please my parents, although it does, but in obedience to God and His Word.    But all that said, when your Daddy speaks words like that to you it is love that makes one promise with everything in them to do their best to see it happen.

I played piano for my Dad, lots of old hymns.  I asked a couple of times if he wanted to sing.   No, no, was the answer.  Until I played the Haven of Rest.  I was singing the verses and when I got to the chorus my Dad’s voice came through strong singing:

I’ve anchored my soul in the Haven of Rest, I’ll sail the wide seas no more

The tempest may sweep o’re the wild stormy deep,  In Jesus I’m safe evermore

What great words being sung by a great man……

Blessed to be his daughter

Joyce

Mighty winds. We have had gales winds for the last four days. On Monday Rick came running in the house saying that the dock was giving way to the waves. Annie and I bundled up and went down to the dock to see what was happening. The waves had collapsed the dock corner between two slips. The fear was that the dock could completely collapse on the boat, pinning it in the slip and damaging the side. Annie and I watched as the men discussed how best to back out into the waves to move the Freitag to the ferry boat landing about 1500 feet north on the shore. My stomach sickened as I heard them discuss timing the waves so backing into a wave would not roll the boat. After much discussion it was decided that the trip to the dock in 10-12 foot waves was not worth the risk. Better to let the boat be banged then risk lives. I was relieved even though they were still talking moving it in the night if the winds stilled. The life of being married to a Commercial Fisherman! I can see little Ruby Weborg shaking her head at the guys when they would head out into the waves. She would shrug her shoulders and say that we need to pray for them. We did indeed pray! Wisest words a Commercial Fisherman’s wife could share.

Good friends. Fishermen came to check the boats and then gathered around Rick weighing out the issues with the dock and the risk of heading to the ferry dock. I am always blessed to see these guys work together, one heading over to tie a line while being beaten by a wave, four of them down on their knees working to brace the boat with wenches. They are so brave and calm at the same time, working quickly as a team instinctively knowing what ropes and chains to get to solve the problem. Quite the group these men are! Love them all.

This is breakfast at our house, food tea or coffee, Bibles out, filling our hearts with truth, journals for notes, recipe for supper out and a stalk of oregano to discuss that the plant parts can be used for. I forgot the ever present chore list! Always a little chaos, always learning. Love it!

Fall abundance. This is and will be a common site for the next few days, canning equipment on the stove! We have canned plums, plum jelly and juice, grape jelly and juice, tomato juice-soup-spaghetti sauce and stewed. This is good although very hard on a kitchen! My girls were fussing about their hands turning blue from the grapes and I told them it wears off……. in about a week! I always tease them about the skills they will have on their “wife-resume” form!

Fun nights at PC Junction. Kari, Robyn Weborg, Lyle, pedal-car racing in the dark! We had such a good time together.

These are the rewards I gave myself for being a good Mother-of-the-Bride! A new apron and a new dishtowel and pretty napkins. What fun!

Annie’s awesome garlic bread

To Everything there is a Season

One of the things I adore about northern Wisconsin is our change of seasons.  I welcome the changes of each season with it’s uniqueness.  My favorite season is upon me…. Fall through Winter.

Fall brings me back to what is dearest to my heart; being with my children more, the hope that the summer work is done, supper tables with candles lit, reading by the fire, digging into God’s Word consistently and canning the produce from our gardens and the gardens of those who love us.   I enjoy Fall sunsets which are more pink and blues than the summery orange and leave the sky in a pale yellow for some time after the sun actually sets.

I admire God’s artist supremacy as I drive down the roads comparing all of His reds and oranges or hunting in our acreage for the deepest colors to wax and keep as treasures, reminding me of this awesome Creator that I love.

I am humbled by the blessing of abundance as I can jars of tomato sauces and tomato soup, chopped tomatoes and juice.  I can beautiful pink plums and rose colored jelly from gifts given to my husband.  Fall brings out love and sharing as he came in the house last night, arms laden with squashes, organic eggs, deep purple plums.  All thank-you gifts for his generous blessings of fish given throughout the year.  It’s the continuous cycle of blessing….  one thing given out of love for another gift of love.   It is community at it’s finest.

There is another season of life going on as well.

It is again the season of loss,  these are the days of loss as I remember the loss of my dear friend Donna five years ago and the loss of my dear friends daughters 3 years ago and a few others as well.

It is also a season for my family where we are reckoning with the loss of our dearest Father as his health is declining rapidly.

I tasted this season last Spring, sitting beside his bed, praying with him and wondering how long.  This season is back and I am torn between tears of sadness for knowing I may not hear his voice for long and a satisfying happiness that my Dad will walk again, hip restored, muscles strong, nerves healed, body redeemed as well as his soul.   Our faith is always lined with that thread that keeps us tied to the eternal, the heavens, that place we do not know yet long for with all of our hearts.   A heart heavy with earthly things and yet hopeful for things I know of only through faith.

God, in His infinite wisdom will control when this season will be over, for He knows and loves best.   In God’s cycle of love He gave His Son which my Father received and in return lived his life to serve God out of his love for God.  Now my Father will receive again when he enters heaven to be with his Heavenly Father to enjoy Him for eternity.   God is so good and I praise His name.

I am blessed to have seasons in my life and I will enjoy them,

Joyce

Monday, only written on Tuesday!

I really did intend to write yesterday morning, but then life started to happen and did not stop until 9 last night in which I gave up the house-wife ghost and went to bed…

Yesterday was our first day of school, I know, freaks me out too!  I have never started this late as I have been an end of August starter for the last 20 years of our home-educating.  Life dictated differently for me this year and so here we are.

I spent the two whole days last week organizing books, finding books and frantically ordering books that I had probably given away or that the curriculum had changed.  If you remember pre-wedding, Melody had already arranged most of her books as she was ready to start school at the normal time, we are creatures of habit!

As I did this preparing I started to get REALLY excited.  Annie and Melly are both starting with Ancient History.  Annie is also studying history side-be-side with church history.  It should be good.  I just love educating our children and it has been the best choice for our family.

So, yesterday I woke, had coffee with Rick, did the lunch-pail thing,  started our laundry and made the mistake of going to get meat out of the big freezer.  Usually this is a good thing and a form of a miracle when I actually get the meat thawing before 10 or even noon!  But, upon opening the door I realized that the freezer was not working properly and really needed a de-frosting.  I must interject at this time that RARELY does my life run according to MY schedule…. anyway.   I thankfully had Rick’s huge cooler out on the lawn from all the entertaining with the wedding and with a quick run to the shed for another cooler I was able to empty the freezer.  In the process I found things that I needed to get rid of and quick.  I also found that I am good on freezer jam for the year and have enough ground beef to last until Christmas!

In the midst of this chaos we did start school.

We started our school year by listening to James McDonald preach as we did much of last year.  You may tune in to his sermons at http://www.harvestbible.org/   Pull down MEDIA menu and click on THIS WEEKS MESSAGE.

He has just started a series on Revelation and it was so good.

The day went not as planned with Annie’s little Gracie here and stuff happening.  It was 6 last night when I decided that we were done for the day.  Rick was running late and since he was bringing the supper home (fish), we were able to do this.

Today will be better.

We are going to pick the tomatoes and get them stewing to can later and then get right on to school.  It is supposed to be warm and so we may have to head to the beach to swim one last time.

First I have to go get my laundry moving because it is not my day and the girls have words with me when I use their days to do my laundry.  They stand their with their hand on their hip, finger wagging at me telling my that I made the chart and so I had better stick with it.   WHERE did they learn that behavior??????    

I will have a post about the wedding soon, I promise.  So many thoughts and memories still rolling around in my head…

Blessed so much,

Joyce

Love is Not a Fight

This is the song that we all keep spontaneously singing lines from through the day.  This is the song that Guy sang at the wedding.  The words are powerful and brought many to tears.  Guy changed the words to ” may God send angels to LOCK the door.”   He also used the last lines to question Jeni and Jason on whether they would fight for each other and they each in turn nodded yes.  Beautiful, profound and fearful.  God says that no man should separate what He has joined.  Let it be so!  It may seem odd to think of fighting for love, but in this day and age, anyone married for over 10 years can attest to the fact it is a fight and we must be VERY purposeful every day to keep our marriages good and strong and full of love.  It is a fight, but with God, the creator and sustainer, the all-powerful God, we, as His children CAN have the victory.  AMEN and AMEN

Love is not a place

to come and go as we please

It’s a house we enter in,

then commit to never leave

So lock the door behind you,

throw away the key

We’ll work it out together

Let it bring us to our knees

Love is a shelter in a raging storm

Love is peace in the middle of a war

And if we try to leave,

may God send angels to guard the door

No, love is not a fight

but it’s something worth fighting for

To some, love is a word

that they can fall into

But when they’re falling out

Keeping that word is hard to do

Love is a shelter in a raging storm

Love is peace in the middle of a war

And if we try to leave,

may God send angels to guard the door

No, love is not a fight

but it’s something worth fighting for

Love will come to save us,

if we’ll only call

He will ask nothing from us

But demand we give our all

I will fight for you,

Would you fight for me?

It’s worth fighting for

Sunset pictures

Memories…

Faces from our days

Family Fun

God is good!

Psalm 25:8 says; Good and upright is the Lord.  So TRUE!

I have lived by a principle for many years of stating what ever good thought come to my mind out loud.  God challenged me to this years ago as the power to bless is within the tongue.   So…… if I think something good about someone, I tell them, even a stranger.  And when I see God’s goodness in my life I will speak out loud “God is good.”    This is a fact, the Bible teaches us this.

After the last week of out life, I am able to say over and over again that GOD is GOOD.

Here is why:

God brought us dear friends and family to celebrate this wedding with us.

God provided the most beautiful weather for us over this week, and sunsets galore.

God provided wisdom for us to work with flowers and decorating the tent which was all done beautifully.

God provided the love for Jeni and jason

God provided our family times together where we could love and support one another

God helped me find things that were missing, keep track of very important things, have enough food in the pantry and fridge and trunks of cars ( very convenient place for storing liters of soda and canned items when you lack storage areas as I do! )

God provided a friend to take care of a need I had

God provided friends and family who helped, filled in the gaps, did what we could not do, stood with us to see this wedding to completetion

God provided patience for me with the bathroom only getting done on Friday, and the ability to NOT see the tools that were left in the living room and outside that bathroom…..    ggrrrrrrr.

I could go on and on.  I will in later posts, but I just have to praise Him right now and say that He is indeed good!

Blessed, so blessed

Joyce