Monday, November 25, 2013

Glory


Quote:

How I want to see the weight of glory break my thick scales, the weight of glory smash the chains of desperate materialism, split the numbing shell of deadening entertainment, bust up the ice of catatonic hearts.

Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, pp. 110.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

"Well Done"

Congrats to Jo C. on winning the pay-it-forward fun money. And congrats to TeenMOPS who will be benefitting from this donation. Happy crock pot cooking!


This is my last post in the series 31 Days of Opening My Mouth.
I obviously desire it to be deeply meaningful and inspiring.
It just so happens that I heard an amazing sermon yesterday. The Church at Brook Hills is preaching a great series right now based on the book of 1 Corinthians.

I want you to hear this sermon. It is everything we need to hear to motivate us do what we can. That we will look back at our lives and not proclaim, "Vanity. All is vanity." But that we could look back when we get to the end and say, "I did what I could."

And when we meet Jesus face to face, that he will say, "Well done."

So, I am going to strongly urge you to please listen to or watch this sermon. I can't recap or summarize it in a way that will convey the power of this message. You have to hear it for yourself. Plan a time when you can listen to it- in your car, while you shower...I don't know your schedule, but as Miss Piggy would say, "Kermie?!? MAKE TIME!"
You will be glad you heard it. You will not be like, "Ugh, I should have baked a pie instead. At least then I'd have a pie."

So, to inspire you, I would like to offer a contest. While listening to this sermon, please be on the look-out (hear-out?) for something that made me play a section over and over and laugh harder every time I listened to it. If you can tell me the minutes/seconds reference to this spot in the sermon, I will enter your name in a drawing to win $100.00 of pay-it-forward fun money. Free money to give as you see fit. Keep it in your pocket to help out a lady at the grocery store, buy a bunch of tracts to give out this Christmas, lovely necklaces from Kisses from Katie, a water filter for a family through Gospel for Asia, a scholarship for New Horizons for Children- the possibilities are endless.

Your entry has to be secret though, so your comments won't show up on the blog until after the drawing, which will be November 7, 2013.

Click here to listen.

Click here to watch.






So, that's it. Don't waste your life. Your life is a gift. Your house is a gift. Your clothes are a gift. Your food is a gift. Don't hoard it. Share it. Invest it in others. Invest in God's kingdom.

Make your life count. Follow Jesus, the meaning-maker. Hear the cry of the poor and needy, the orphan and widow, the fatherless. And do what you can.

*where's your treasure?*

XO
Joce

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

3 Gifts Silent

1. Silence, quiet, no noise
2. Moonlit nights
3. Smiles

Friday, November 15, 2013

Making up Thanks

3 Gifts at Noon
1. Fire Horn
2. National Anthem
3. Sitting Down

3 Gifts Behind a Door
1. New babies at the hospital
2. Visiting Grampy
3. Barn light

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Three Gifts of Remembrance

1. Recipes passed down
2. Old song time warp
3. Cherished possessions, cared for, bestowed

*where's your treasure?*
~Joce

Mountain Dream

One night the old man from the mountain dreamed a dream. The night was clear and cold. The moon was shining down bright on the house he had built with his own hands in the clearing in the woods dusted with early snow. He dreamt of his good wife who slept on the hill beneath the maple.

In his dream, they were checking into a hotel. They were obviously on a business trip, with others from their company milling around in the lobby. The man and his wife were carrying a case full of papers with the information of the people they were responsible to contact and care for. The wife, being world weary and bone tired, headed on up to their room. As she went up to rest, the case spilled, leaving the important papers they were carrying scattered on the floor. The others who were attending the business conference hardly noticed. No one stopped to help. No one else was concerned about the people and concerns represented by those spilled papers.

The man knelt, in his Sunday-go-to-meeting black leather vest and shined-up boots, realized it would fall to him to take care of this situation himself before he could join his wife. He gathered up the papers and noticed that there weren't too many. It wouldn't take him overly long to finish the work they had started. He sensed the importance of the task left to him to complete.

He awoke the next morning, the smoke of his woodfire purposefully curling up to the wide blue, his heart longing for heaven and home. The fire cracked. The leaves crunched. The snow sparkled. There was work left to do and he purposed in his heart to get it done.

Luke 21: 34-36
34 But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. 35 For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”






 


Hebrews 1:12 
12 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

*where's your treasure?*
~Joce
 

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

3 Gifts found in Bible Reading

1. Perspective
2. Promises
3. Peace

Alliterated. Cool.
XO

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

3 Gifts Harvest

1. Amazement at the bounty
2. Soup soup soup
3. Hard work rewarded


Sunday, November 10, 2013

Arwyn says:

While nursing,
"Ah locket boovies mama."
(I like it boobies, mama.)

Then a little while later,
"Ah lock ooh mama."
(I like you mama.)
Sung to the tune of
"I Like You"
from Daniel Tiger.

Blessed.

The gift of grace

A benediction for the failures, the fallers, the impatient mothers, the angry fathers, the weak, the tired, the discouraged:

Jude
24 Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
25 To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Good thing, right? Because I can't present myself faultless before the presence of His Glory.

He calls me out on deep water. And I can't be trusted to keep swimming much less help someone else while I'm there.  But He calls me out- to the great unknown. And I find that the deeper the water, the more my faith is made stronger and my need for grace becomes even more clear.

Have a lovely song:



And a blessed day.

*where's your treasure?*
Joce

Friday, November 08, 2013

The Secret

A gift sweet, salty, sipped.

1. Pomegranate
2. Chocolate covered peanut clusters
3. Hot toddy*

The secret:
"I read, 'The greatest thing is to give thanks for everything. He who has learned this knows what it means to live....He has penetrated the whole mystery of life: giving thanks for everything.' Breath leaves the lung.
I whisper in the dark: Eucharisteo!
It really might be the mystery to the fullest life....
I lie on relief. I might have found the holy grail... and lost it, moved on. And yet really- hadn't God se the holy grail in the center of Christianity? Eucharisteo, it's the central symbol of Christianity Thanksgiving. The table with its emblems is the essence of what it means to live the Christ-life. Sunday after Sunday in our nondenominational Bible church, we're formally invited to take the bread, the wine. Doesn't the continual repetition of beginning our week at the table of the Eucharist clearly place the whole of our lives into the context of Thanksgiving?
And too...it's the most common of foods, bread. The drink of the vine has been part of our meal taking across the centuries and cultures. Jesus didn't institute the Eucharist around some unusual, rare, once-a-year event, but around this continual act of eating a slice of bread, drinking a cup of fruit from the vine. First Corinthians 11:26 reads, "whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup" -whenever.
Like every day. Whenever we eat.
Eucharisteo---whenever: now. Joy---wherever: here."
~Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, p. 33-34

Philippians 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

*where's your treasure?*
~Joce

 


*My mama always made me hot toddy whenever I needed warming up, inside or out. I think she always put a little nip of brandy in it. LOL.
Heat together in a small saucepan:
Apple juice or cider
Orange or lemon juice or slice
Honey
Cloves (whole or ground)
Cinnamon (stick or ground)
Brandy? or vanilla extract would probably do



Thursday, November 07, 2013

Grace. Thanksgiving. Joy.

Three words that come together in eucharisteo (breaking of bread, Last Supper, communion).
Give thanks.
Get grace.
Have joy.

3 gifts from your window.

1. Sunlight across my dining room table
2. Spring peepers and night music
3. Breath of fresh air

*where's your treasure?*

~Joce

Wednesday, November 06, 2013

3 Gifts Government

1. Founding fathers; faithful, wise
2. Freedom of religion
3. 2nd amendment*
 
     


Thomas Jefferson
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
 
"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.”
Thomas Jefferson, Complete Jefferson

Tuesday, November 05, 2013

Living

"How do we live fully so we are fully ready to die?"
Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts
November 5, 2008
 


November Joy Dare- "Three Gifts Acorn Small"

134. Amazima beads
135. Werther's Original
136. White oak acorns (the hats!)
137. Energetic children
138. Potty training
139. Curiosity
140. Creativity
141. Phonics
142. Good fiction
143. Purity
144. Clean tables
145. Shiny floors
146. Warm beds
147. Family loyalty
148. Ameraucana chickens
149. The blue and green eggs
150. Rooster's crow
151. Compost
152. Square foot gardens
153. Abundant squash
154. Spices
155. Hot chocolate
156. Boys who fix things
157. Manly sons
158. Shoes
159. Christmas music
160. Shoeboxes (Operation Christmas Child)
161. MOPS
162. Servant-hearts
163. Discipleship
164. Turkey sounds
165. Frosty sunshine mornings
166. "Clean Up" song
167. Baby talk
168. Pretty books
169. More grace.


Monday, November 04, 2013

Yes or No

"I know it but I don't want to: it is a choice. Living with losses, I may choose to still say yes. Choose to say yes to what He freely gives. Could I live that-- the choice to open the hands to freely receive whatever God gives? If I don't, I am still making a choice.
The choice not to.
The day I met my brother-in-law at the back door, looking for his brother, looking like his brother, is the day I see it clear as a full moon rising bright over January snow, that choice, saying yes or no to God's graces, is the linchpin of it all, or everything."
Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, p. 18

Romans 5

Faith Triumphs in Trouble

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have[a] peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
 

Faith Brings Joy

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.
And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

So, give thanks for what hurts. That is really crazy and nobody does that. We read that and we don't do it because it's stupid. We say, maybe, in ten years, and I can see how something good came from this, I'll stop being angry about it. But rejoice in a trial when I'm in it and all it does it hurt? False. Inauthentic. Faker.

Unless we believe God. If we really believe God, we can truly thank God for our losses and trials and hard times. I'm going to try this out. See how it fits

But I don't really want to try this in public, so I'm going to keep most of my list to myself today.

101-130.
131. Gathered: Red ripe raspberries
132. Given: Hugs
133. Good: Wisdom

Give thanks for your losses, a gift gathered, a gift given, a gift that is good.
Check out Ann's November Joy Dare printable.

*where's your treasure?*
~Joce

 

 
 

Sunday, November 03, 2013

Gifts

These gift lists are mostly for me folks. But just so you know what's going on, I'm reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp and I am writing down 1,000 things for which I am thankful this month.
65. bagels & cream cheese
66. lasagna
67. Communion
68. fluffywhip
69. gardens
70. bacon
71. cows
72. milk
73. hot peppers
74. pizza dates
75. family
76. movie night
77. Duck Dynasty
78. homemade ricotta
79. mozzarella
80. bread machines
81. down-filled warm things
82. fun socks
83. contact lenses
84. Silent Night
85. the name of Jesus
86. Noel
87. wooden blocks
88. hand-me-downs
89. sunshine on the floor
90. steam mops
91. Thieves cleaner
92. baking cookies
93. mentors
94. free squash
95. pureed soups
96. Merville's furniture
97. full freezer
98. stocked pantry
99. Young Living oils
100. grandmothers

*where's your treasure?*

XO
Joce

Saturday, November 02, 2013

Thanks and Giving

Thanks:

One Thousand Gifts, November 2.

42. Homemade bread
43. Vests
44. Flannel Sheets
45. Adoption
46. Revival (it's a repeat, I know)
47. EVOO
48. Hot tea
49. God's Word
50. Conviction
51. Passion
52. Turkey Dinner
53. Marriage
54. Red Barns
55. Blue Sky
56. Red Apples
57. Orioles (the birds)
58. Black capped chickadee dee dee dee dee
59. Jammied kids
60. Home
61. Crochet
62. Legacies
63. Corn bread
64. Truth

Giving:

Tomorrow is Orphan Sunday. If you do one thing to about it, read this story:
"Thirty years.  
Thirty years; most of my life, but for me it represents something big.Thirty years is an anniversary for me.  Thirty years ago I was hungry; I was thirsty; I needed clothes.  Missing from my life were the fundamental things children need."

*where's your treasure?*
~Joce

Friday, November 01, 2013

One Thousand Gifts

An exercise in Thankfulness. No particular order. Really, don't judge my order. :)
1. My mother
2. My father
3. My sister
4. My brother
5. 4-H
6. Horses
7. Goats
8. Music
9. Voice
10. Piano
11. Mrs. Paige
12. The Sickler family
13. Holiness
14. Evangelists
15. Revival
16. Prayer
17. Joseph
18. Anastasija
19. Brilyn
20. Cade
21. Jessup
22. Arwyn
23. Libraries
24. Autumn
25. Arkansas Blacks
26. Orchards
27. apple pie
28. Pumpkin Pie
29. Farms
30. Coffee
31. Candles
32. Jesus
33. Resurrection
34. Kaleb
35. Brok
36. Sharp cheese
37. Ice Cream
38. Deer Hunting
39. Woodstoves
40. Farmhouses
41. Red Tractors

About Me

About Me
I love Jesus, my hubby, my 6 kiddos, my farm, good books and good food.