Here are some of morgans fun goods from tonight! She was inspired by the book "Pinkalicious"!!
This really deserves a post of its own. Y'all I am a die hard sweet eater. I HAVE NEVER EVER HAD A CAKE THIS GOOD IN MY LIFE. It will be in heaven. Here is Beth Moore's recipe from her blog: GO HERE
Psalm 37
1 a]" Do not fret because of evil men
or be envious of those who do wrong;
2 for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.
Read the story here or on my blog.
THIS MAKES ME FURIOUS!! I DO NOT HAVE ONE OUNCE OF COMPASSION TOWARD THIS GUY OR HIS WIFE. They are sick. The guy is a sex offender and the authorities had no clue that he had a compound in his backyard and father 2 kids with the girl he abducted ...and his wife went along with it?!?! This is why there should be stiffer penalties for sex-offenders. Clearly he was a repeat offender. Then, the woman in the story that lived next door...FORGET what your husband said and call the stinking authorities. I don't care what Rod says if I felt there were some kids in danger with a sex offender...I would in no way care about the repercussions on my part in calling the authorities. The husband next door was too concerned for his own well-being to reach out over something that was clearly horrifying! He said they should just leave them alone. This is what makes me furious as well...people do not want to get their own hands dirty because it might cost them something.
New Details Emerge of Life Led in Secret Compound by California Kidnap Victim
Friday, August 28, 2009
AP
Jaycee Lee Dugard, shown in this family photo, was kidnapped at age 11 and allegedly held as a sex slave for 18 years until her release this week.
Jaycee Lee Dugard, shown in this family photo, was kidnapped at age 11 and allegedly held as a sex slave for 18 years until her release this week.
A clearer picture is emerging of the life led by a young woman allegedly kidnapped when she was 11 and held prisoner by a convicted sex offender for the past 18 years.
Jaycee Lee Dugard, now 29, was allegedly held captive in an intricate backyard compound of tents, sheds and fences belonging to Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy. Authorities say Garrido repeatedly raped her and fathered her two children.
She was 11 when she was abducted in 1991 as she waited for her school bus on a street in South Lake Tahoe. Her stepfather, who was watching from his driveway, said he saw a car pull up next to her. Someone inside grabbed the little girl and sped away.
Dugard was taken directly to the house less than 200 miles from her childhood home and sheltered from the world in a secret, leafy backyard, investigators said Thursday.
PHOTOS: Missing Girl Found 18 Years Later
Her abductor, investigators said, raped her and fathered two children with her, the first when Jaycee was about 14. Those girls, now 11 and 15, also were kept hidden away in the backyard compound behind the Antioch home, according to authorities.
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"None of the children have ever been to school, they've never been to a doctor," El Dorado County Undersheriff Fred Kollar said. "They were kept in complete isolation in this compound."
Even a parole agent who visited Garrido's home didn't have an inkling about the hidden compound, Kollar said. Garrido is a registered sex offender on federal parole for rape and kidnapping convictions.
"The way the house is set up, the way the backyard is set up, you could walk through the backyard, walk through the house, and never know," Kollar said.
But neighbors said there were clues even before a parole agent on Wednesday noticed Dugard, who accompanied Garrido, his wife and the children to a parole office.
Neighbor Diane Doty said she could see the tents and often heard children playing in the backyard, the corner of which abuts her own backyard. She said she even suspected the children lived in the tents, but her husband said she should leave the family alone.
Related Stories
Police: California Girl Kidnapped 18 Years Ago Kept as Sex Slave in Couple's Backyard
"I asked my husband, 'Why is he living in tents?"' she said. "And he said, 'Maybe that is how they like to live."'
Investigators searching the compound found a bicycle and a few other children's toys there.
Police said they had no evidence that Dugard had ever reached out to anyone beyond the compound walls.
"She was in good health, but living in a backyard for the past 18 years does take its toll," Kollar said.
The backyard compound had electricity from extension cords and a rudimentary outhouse and shower, "as if you were camping," Kollar said.
Earlier Friday, Dugard's the stepfather said she was reunited with her mother and the family was "doing great."
Carl Probyn told CBS' "Early Show" Friday morning that he spoke to his wife Terry, from whom he is separated, late Thursday after she was reunited with her daughter.
"I think they're pretty happy," Probyn said, counting out the six people who were at the reunion: Dugard, her two daughters born during her alleged captivity, her mother, her sister and another relative.
He said the most surprising thing to his wife was that Dugard looks almost like she did when she was taken.
"She looks very young, she looks very healthy," Probyn said. "She told me that Jaycee feels really guilty for bonding with this guy. She has a real guilt trip."
Suspect Garrido, 58, was due in court Friday. He is being held for investigation of various kidnapping and sex charges.
Authorities said his 54-year-old wife, Nancy Garrido, was with him during the kidnapping and also has been arrested.
Dugard's stepfather, who was a longtime suspect in the case, said he was overwhelmed by the news after doing everything he could to help find her.
"It broke my marriage up. I've gone through hell, I mean I'm a suspect up until yesterday," a tearful Probyn, 60, told The Associated Press at his home in Orange, Calif. He said her family felt troubled by learning the facts of how she was forced to live for 18 years.
The case broke after Garrido was spotted Tuesday with two children as he tried to enter the University of California, Berkeley, campus to hand out religious literature. Officers said he was acting suspiciously toward the children. They questioned him and did a background check, determined that he was a parolee and informed his parole officer.
Garrido was ordered to appear for a parole meeting and arrived Wednesday with Dugard, who identified herself as "Allissa," his wife, and two children. During questioning, corrections officials said he admitted to kidnapping Dugard.
Investigators said he did not yet have an attorney.
Authorities said they do not know if Garrido also abused his daughters, but they are investigating.
Garrido's compound was located in Antioch, a city of 100,000 about 170 miles from the Dugard family home in South Lake Tahoe.
People who knew Garrido said he became increasingly fanatic about his religious beliefs in recent years, sometimes breaking out into song and claiming that God spoke to him through a box.
"In the last couple years he started getting into this strange religious stuff. We kind of felt sorry for him," said Tim Allen, president of East County Glass and Window Inc. in Pittsburg, Calif., who bought business cards and letterhead from Garrido's printing business for the last decade.
Three times in recent years, Garrido arrived at Allen's showroom with two "cute little blond girls" in tow, he said.
In April 2008, Garrido registered a corporation called God's Desire at his home address, according to the California Secretary of State. During recent visits to the showroom, Garrido would talk about quitting the printing business to preach full time and gave the impression he was setting up a church, Allen said.
"He rambled. It made no sense," he said.
In a blog that appears to have been maintained by Garrido, he wrote that he had hired a private investigator to verify his ability to speak to people using only his mind. In an "affadavit" posted there, he said he had the ability to "control sound with my mind and have developed a device for others to witness this phenomena."
Garrido gave a rambling, sometimes incoherent phone interview to KCRA-TV from the El Dorado County jail Thursday in which he said he had not admitted to a kidnapping and that he had turned his life around since the birth of his first daughter 15 years ago.
"I tell you here's the story of what took place at this house, and you're going to be absolutely impressed. It's a disgusting thing that took place from the end to the beginning. But I turned my life completely around," he said.
In addition to kidnapping allegations, court records showed both Garridos were being held for investigation of rape by force, lewd and lascivious acts with a minor and kidnapping someone under 14 with intent to rape. Phillip Garrido also faces allegations of sexual penetration.
The AP, as a matter of policy, avoids identifying victims of alleged sexual abuse by name in its news reports. However, Dugard's disappearance had been known and reported for nearly two decades, making impossible any effort to shield her identity now.
Garrido has a long rap sheet dating to the 1970s.
He was convicted of kidnapping a 25-year-old woman whom he snatched from a South Lake Tahoe parking lot, handcuffed, tied down and held in a mini-warehouse in Reno, according to a November 1976 story in the Reno Gazette-Journal.
He also has a conviction for rape by force or fear stemming from the same incident, and was paroled from a Nevada state prison in 1988, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
In 1991, police believe he was trolling for victims in South Lake Tahoe in a Ford Granada when he snatched Dugard from a bus stop outside her home. The case attracted national attention and was featured on TV's "America's Most Wanted," which broadcast a composite drawing of a suspect seen in the car.
Probyn said his wife was devastated by the kidnapping. He said for 10 years after the crime, she would take a week off work at Christmas and on the anniversary of the abduction and spend the time crying at home.
Jaycee Lee Dugard has retained custody of her children and was staying at a Bay area motel, authorities said.
Click here for more on this story from FOX40.com.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Picture by jennyhope - SnapMyLife
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Ted Kennedy died at his vacation home in Cape Cod. In my opinion (this is just my opinion) he had such a tragic life. He was a senator that served one of the longest tenures in office. I certainly did not agree with him on just about anything...nevertheless.
HERE is the wiki profile.
And the article on Fox news.
Ephesians 2:1-10
Made Alive in Christ 1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful natureand following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
I just finished a time of prayer because frankly I have just been drained. I have been irritable and not feeling good with the beginning of some throat cold. Anyway, I got up off the floor and had sequins stuck to my legs from my sweet child's little projects. The stuff I pester her to clean up. Evidence of being a mom! One day I will miss finding those things stuck to me and the sticky hand prints on the wall. However, the less time I spend with Jesus the more irritable I become with the little things.
It is so easy to become hardened by watching the news and etc. We use it as a defense mechanism to shield our hearts from the onslaught of emotion of pain (which pain of course is a catalyst to let us know something is wrong. It is a good thing when used to thrust as at the feet of Jesus.). So, I was reading Dr. Al Mohlers blog and I just lost it. It is about abortion. I have never had an abortion, but I understand that when you are not a believer in Christ you do not think with a spiritual mind (the mind of Christ). I do not want to condemn anyone who has had an abortion as I am sure they have felt guilty enough. I pray that if you are someone reading this and indeed you have had an abortion that you would come to Christ and except His forgiveness and restoration for that sin. I pray that God would use something awful in your life to turn and snatch others from the flames of the same thing. To a born again Christian, it should be considered murder and we should have righteous indignation over it. Especially since God created every life with purpose. When I was lost, not knowing Christ Jesus, I may too have done the same as thousands of other women in aborting a child. Who can say for sure. I in no way condone it (as there are consequences for all of our sin), I am just saying that my renewed mind thinks way differently than my old sinful mind, when I had no clue about living for the Lord. We were all born with a certain moral code in our DNA, but I can tell you for sure my convictions are way different from when I did not know Christ. As a believer we have got to quit focusing so much on "our junk" and working that all out that we miss the Healer. When we are constantly focusing on the past we can't get on with the present. I hope you understand what I am saying. There are things that I have struggled with for years that I would dredge up and wallow in unforgiveness when I was forgiven. Yes I will remember that past sin but I have to make a choice to remind myself of the Lords forgiveness and that none of us are worthy and go on in the strength and power of the Holy Spirit. There are so many things that I wish I could do over but I will lose myself to the past if I don't walk on with God and make choices today that were different from yesterday. That is victory...when you are faced with similar circumstances and choose a different path than the one that almost led you to the stinking grave!! I have been disciplined SEVERELY for some choices I have made. Don't take me lightly...I mean SEVERELY CHASTISED out of the Lords great love for me. I had a personal season of being sifted like wheat that lasted, I KID YOU NOT, for about 3 years. Why that long? Because that's what it took for it to take. I NEVER EVER WANT TO GO BACK TO THAT KIND OF SIFTING. I have been reminded all week and just got up from prayer asking God to help me remember that HIS COMMANDS ARE NOT BURDENSOME. They are for the good of me and you. I prayed that for a friend as well that God would be all over her with that and that she would revel in the good the LORD has for her out of obedience to His commands. I prayed that the Lord's desires would trump the desires of her flesh. Oh how we need that (as I am talking to primarily believers who read this blog). I so have to go or I am going to be bad late!!! LOVE TO YOU ALL!
The following is what I read:
Rethinking Abortion -- Two Unexpected Witnesses
Posted: Friday, August 21, 2009 at 4:10 am ET
Looking across the moral landscape of the last half-century, one issue looms larger than all others -- abortion. Considered from a historical perspective, the intensity and duration of the abortion debate came as something of a surprise. Handing down its infamous Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, the majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court declared the abortion question settled and closed. They were wrong.
Almost four decades after Roe v. Wade, Americans are still torn over the issue of abortion. Indeed, the intensity of the abortion debate in 2009 exceeds that of 1973. The controversy over abortion is not only unsettled and unresolved -- it is still developing before our eyes. To the great consternation of abortion-rights proponents, Americans have not accepted abortion on demand as a permanent reality. As a nation, we have debated any number of issues beyond abortion in recent years, but abortion remains the controversy that is most central, unavoidable, and deeply personal.
The personal dimension of the abortion controversy came to light this week from two unexpected witnesses. The first is Sarah Kliff, a reporter for Newsweek magazine. In a very personal column, Kliff describes her experience visiting Omaha, Nebraska and the abortion clinic of Dr. LeRoy Carhart, now perhaps the nation's sole specialist in late-trimester abortions. As Kliff writes, her experience covering abortion for the magazine over the past two years has led her into contact and conversation with a range of persons on both sides of the abortion debate. She recognizes that, "both sides feel abortion is an issue worth waging war over."
Given her journalistic experience, Kliff describes herself as "well-versed in abortion policy, the pro-choice and pro-life arguments, the latest legislation." Her next sentence delivers the surprise: "But I'd never actually seen an abortion; I'd never watched the procedure that activists vehemently defend or deplore."
But that is exactly what happened when Kliff went to Omaha to research her article on Dr. Carhart. Even as she anticipated observing the abortion, Kliff confessed to hesitancy and reluctance. She observed a first-trimester abortion, even though Dr. Carhart does perform late-term abortions. Why was she so ambivalent?
In her words:
Why was I reluctant to watch? To be fair, I'd never observed a surgery and knew myself to frequently flinch at 'Grey's Anatomy.' But abortion isn't like the complex, bloody operations you see on television: medically speaking, it's a simple and common procedure. About 1.2 million were performed in 2005, the same, numberwise, as outpatient cancer surgeries. I was nervous, I think, to watch something so controversial; no one protests outside cancer clinics. I didn't know how I'd react. Would I find the surgery repulsive? Encounter women whose choices troubled me? Whom I disagreed with? I was uneasy about coming in such close contact with such substantial decisions.
Observing the abortion, Kliff writes of seeing a woman prepared for the procedure and then of the suction tube that was inserted within her. Her report is both chilling and honest. "Carhart used a suction tube to empty the contents of the uterus; it took no longer than three minutes. The suction machine made a slight rumbling sound, a pinkish fluid flowed through the tube, and, faster than I'd expected, it was over."
As Kliff recounts, she felt no physical discomfort observing the procedure. Nevertheless, she did experience a very strong emotional reaction. After describing this emotional reaction and her encounters with patients in the abortion clinic, Kliff tells of returning home only to discover that her friends who supported abortion rights "bristled slightly when I told them where I'd been and what I'd watched."
In a profound statement, Sarah Kliff acknowledges that Americans just do not talk about abortion as they talk about other surgical or medical procedures. "Abortion may be a simple procedure medically," she explains, "but it is not cancer surgery."
Sarah Kliff does not condemn abortion in her article and she does not articulate a pro-life understanding of the abortion issue. Indeed, she speaks of abortion as involving a weighty choice that, "depending on how you view it, involves a life, or the potential for life." This is a very weak way of describing the moral question of abortion, but it is at least a start. Sarah Kliff's honest reflections on her experience of observing an abortion are, perhaps more than she knows or recognizes, a witness to the horror of abortion. Her description of "pinkish fluid" flowing through the suction tube is almost impossible to force out of one's mind.
Another unexpected witness this week is actress Kourtney Kardashian. Her recently announced unplanned pregnancy became part of Hollywood's scandal and publicity circus. But what caught the attention of the media this week was her decision to keep the baby and the straightforward logic behind her decision.
Kardashian has not adopted a pro-life position on the abortion question. Indeed, she told People magazine: "I do think every woman should have the right to do what they want, but I don't think it's talked through enough." The actress told of many friends who just assured her that abortion was the easy way out. "Like it's not a big deal," the actress recalled.
Interestingly, Kardashian's decision to keep her baby was at least partially prompted by her experience of reading the testimonies of women who regretted their abortions. "I looked online, and I was sitting on the bed hysterically crying, reading these stories of people who felt so guilty for having an abortion," she explained.
"I was just sitting there crying, thinking, 'I can't do that,' . . . And I felt in my body, this is meant to be. God does things for a reason, and I just felt like it was the right thing that was happening in my life."
As she thought about her decision, Kardashian concluded that "all the reasons why I wouldn't keep the baby were so selfish." She also received encouragement from her doctor. "My doctor told me there is nothing you will ever regret about having the baby, but he was like, 'You may regret not having the baby.' And I was like: That is so true."
The Culture of Death looms as a massive threat, but its foundations are crumbling. Unexpected witnesses such as Sarah Kliff and Kourtney Kardashian help us to see how moral insight can emerge from unexpected experiences, reflections, and witnesses. Some of the most profound witnesses to the horror of abortion and the sanctity of human life do not even know that they are so. The evil of abortion cannot be hidden once it is seen, and a voice for life cannot be forgotten once it is heard.
___________________________
I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.
It is hard to believe that tonight I was entering into one of the hardest gut wrenching trials of my life. Losing my firstborn. If I sit and think long enough I will go to pieces but I am really ok. I just have the personality that wants to remember my sweet ones little life. She would have been five! I would have had a little girl in kindergarten.
I have been blessed beyond measure and God has been so faithful to me. I learned so much about Him through that time! Cling to Him...He is Your Life and the Length of Your days. He will meet you in the desert and be Your Husband and the God who sees you, "El Roi".
I looked through those cards lastnight. I have not looked at them in five years. I cried my eyes out over the faithfulness of God through my brothers and sisters in Christ. They encouraged me back to health as part of the process that God would use to heal my tattered heart.
And because (ask anyone in my family) I will find any reason to get a cake...me and Morgan are going to get a cake and celebrate the life that was here for a short time but brought Him glory.
4 years old
3 years old
PICS
Morgan: Mom what the crap is in my hair? (speaking of a bobby pin)
Me: Morgan!! Where did you hear that? DO NOT SAY THAT (me almost laughing...ok laughing...shouldn't be laughing)!!
Morgan: You mom. What the crap is in my hair?
Me: Morgan mommy should not say that! I am sorry...don't dare say that again!!
I wore THIS to church yesterday.
While going to a birthday party yesterday Rod said: why did you dress like an Indian today?
me: Well, I just wanted to dress like my ancestry Rod! What in the world!!
GO HERE if you are in the area and sign up for a bible study!!!
Oh the nervous system! There are so many times that I sit at my keyboard about to peck away and write something and I feel sick to my stomach. It is the same feeling I get before I am about to teach Sunday School or a bible study. I just whispered a prayer that God would guide my thoughts and my hands as I write the things that are on my heart. I often feel like I need to take my shoes off before I tread on holy ground. I really need to break this post up into different days.
There are other titles that I wanted to put besides the one that I did, but I don't want you to take anything the wrong way since you can not hear my voice inflections. Boundaries. How do you love those who are not easy to love while keeping boundaries at the same time?
My prayer has been that God will tend to my heart and that I will truly receive His love for me. Without me taking in the love of God over my own life, and in turn loving God with all of my person, I am not able to flesh out love for anyone. I can get up in the morning, do my spiritual jumping jacks, and have good intentions of loving people that are not easy to love and fail at it all in the same hour. It is not possible in the true sense of love to love someone without the love of God coming through the pipeline of my person. He is love. He is the source of love. I think that is why we are told in so many places in scripture to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. It is like a quote that Beth Moore used in praying Gods word that Oswald Chambers had written: "No human love of the heart is safe until it has first been satisfied by God." Coming from someone with a HUGE and I mean HUGE past of insecurity, I know first hand that the more I love God the more secure in Him I become and the less I measure myself to others.
I used to be extremely co-dependent. I had to have a man in my life at all times. It was an idol for me. It validated me, made me feel a false sense of completion, and power. If I were really honest though I would tell you deep down I still felt rejected, incomplete, and not whole or healthy as a person. It has been almost 12 years since I began walking with God on a daily basis and I will tell you for sure that seeking a source other than God to meet the longings of my soul is dangerous, risky business. I was in a relationship where I was totally in love with someone. This person was so high up on the totem pole it wasn't even funny. I lived and breathed this relationship and God ultimately used it for my good, but it was toxic. No matter what it was like I was a moth to the flame. I would hear the still small voice of the Lord letting me know that nothing was going to work out for me in His perfect plan until I quit manipulating. I really sensed that the Lord was calling me to have time with Him alone...Him as my husband. Still, I was involved in the Singles ministry and I would try my hand and manipulating yet another relationship. I was good at that if I must say. I am not proud. I would set my gaze on someone that I felt was most unattainable and go after my goal. Then again and again...doing the same thing but expecting a different result, I would become bored and move on to someone else. This one person had such a hold on me though. I allowed that to happen in not guarding my heart. Part of me was to naive to even comprehend what that meant. I just dove in head first. I would try to change my feelings or run from the relationship only to find myself sucked back in. I knew no matter what that I could not stay where I was and go on with the Lord at the same time. This person loved the Lord so please don't misunderstand. There is just no way that we could fulfill the callings on our lives and be together. I say all of this to say that just because something is permissible, does not mean that it is beneficial. The reason I kept getting sucked in to my co-dependent ways is that I refused to cooperate with the Lord out of fear. My identity was so wrapped up in who I was in relation to so and so that I was scared to death to give up my security blanket. It was almost as if the Lord was trying to get across to me: "Jenny, I don't need to know that you will be okay by yourself...You need to know that you will be okay." I will never forget the process of cooperation. To quote Beth Moore again she said, "You can bend your knees or I will break them but you are going down." Translation: you can humble yourself or I will do it for you. I much prefer humbling myself. So, the cooperating was grueling. Yet looking back it was some of the deepest growth I have had. I really learned what it meant to say that the Lord is my husband. Breaking away from that relationship was extremely painful for so many reasons. I felt as if I was losing my best friend. Yet just like the Israelites, I left Egypt and forgot how bad it was back there. I chose to think only on what was good after my anger was gone. Our hearts are so deceptive. Anyway, that relationship made me feel shame, rejection, unworthiness, betrayal and on and on. Things that are not Gods plan for His children. So, I went through a serious time of fasting, prayer, and just staying on my face begging the Lord to put His hand over my gushing heart to stop the pain of being stripped of the co-dependency that I had held onto with a death-grip. I did not get to that point overnight and I would not be okay overnight. If I had cooperated with the Lord earlier on, I may have not had to go through such hard work on behalf of my stubbornness. I wrote scripture card after scripture card. My room literally became an altar where I would come and just groan before the Lord due to all of my insecurity. It was painful but so worth it. I crossed that Jordan another woman. Then, comes marriage. I married THE MOST independent man on the face. Yet another way of the Lord to teach me to lean on Him. That Christ alone would be the Rock that I stood on. Not anyone, and not sinking sand.
To be continued...I am so about to pass out!!
Title: Wastelands
Author: Elisabeth Elliot
There are dry, fruitless, lonely places in each of our lives, where we seem to travel alone, sometimes feeling as though we must surely have lost the way. What am I doing here? How did this happen? Lord, get me out of this!
He does not get us out. Not when we ask for it, at any rate, because it was He all along who brought us to this place. He has been here before--it is no wilderness to Him, and He walks with us. There are things to be seen and learned in these apparent wastelands which cannot be seen and learned in the "city"--in places of comfort, convenience, and company.
God does not intend to make it no wasteland. He intends rather to keep us--to hold us with his strength, to sustain us with his sure words--in a place where there is nothing else we can count on.
"God did not guide them by the road towards the Philistines, although that was the shortest...God made them go round by way of the wilderness towards the Red Sea" (Ex 13:17,18 NEB).
Imagine what Israel and all of us who worship Israel's God would have missed if they had gone by the short route--the thrilling story of the deliverance from Egypt's chariots when the sea was rolled back. Let's not ask for shortcuts. Let's keep alert for the wonders our Guide will show us in the wilderness.
My friend takes the best pictures ever. It really is art. Y'all if you are local you really need to get her to do some pics! She is amazing and only God could give her the eye and talent that she has!
Her name is Wynter Pate.
GO HERE for her site!
Y'all can I just say that this girl spills authenticity. She truly amazes me and is a work of art inside and out!! She wrote the best post today.
GO HERE
If I die tomorrow (or should I say today??) it is because of the following pics. I don't want to throw Rod under the bus here, but he is very funny about me doing anything to our house. I guess since he lived in it for 5 years before we got married...
If I do anything I must do it during his hours of sleep. Tomorrow, I will ask for forgiveness instead of permission for these little projects that I did tonight!!
(above Morgans closet)
(above her light switch)
(above her tub it looks slanted by the way I took the pic)
Psalm 13:5 (New International Version)
5 But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I make Rods coffee every morning and sometimes I leave him a note there so he will see it on his way to work. After 6 years of marriage it is only because of Gods grace that we are still together!! We would have given up real quick if it weren't for hope. I mean that from both sides!!
Anyway, here is the note I left him this morning! Sometimes I am afraid to step out and show my love toward others for fear that I may have to change my mind based on their actions. Isn't that awful!!!
Just trying to keep it real. LOL
He wrote me a little note at the bottom which he gets points for effort! I loved how he signed his name or I may think it was another man in my house loving me too!! j/k
Aren't you glad the Lords love is unfailing no matter what? I have really been thinking on the attributes of God and how self-sufficient He is. He never had a beginning point or will He ever end. He needs no one and nothing to be God. He does not even need glory from us (to still be God) because He created us out of sheer delight and manifested His glory to a lost world. He doesn't change because of anything we do or don't do. He is upholding this earth by His very word right now. As the sun burns out and the world continues turning on its axis, God is completely separate and unhindered in being God. One might ask: when did you begin God? He never did. He always has existed. There is no such thing as limitations or time to Him. The heavens are majestic and glorious and beyond our wildest imaginations, yet He spoke and they came into being. HE SPOKE and the wonders of this earth and sky came into being. He will never be any more God or any less God. He existed before the heavens and the earth. Before us. What in the world did that look like? What in the world...it almost makes my finite mind freak out and panic. No one even knows the depths of the earth...no one has ever been to the greatest depths of the sea...but He created them and is everywhere all of the time. BLOWS me away! What small thoughts I have had of our creator God. How caught up in mundane living and blinded by the false gods of this world I have become at times. He is so worthy and I am not. What is man that you are mindful of him Lord? No one has ever given to Him that He should repay. Who has ever given Him counsel? He is wisdom. Great, deep, wide, unfathomable wisdom. And He invites the thirsty to come. He sees Christ in those who are His Children. We are heirs and co-heirs with Christ. How could it be?
everyone has asked me where I got my purse. I found it in NC and unfortunately I am going to have to retire it because of my neck.
HERE is a link
Morgan has been drilling me lately. I have been so frustrated this week with my neck and all and just all around irritable. She has been asking me things about Jesus and heaven all of the time. I think she thinks about heaven more because she has a sister there.
Here are some of her questions:
Can I pick some flowers in heaven?
Will Chick-fil-A be in heaven?
What do Jesus' nails look like... I bet they are beautiful (boodafull).
Jesus will hold me and hold me.
Are there going to be Cheezits in heaven?
Why won't there be any night time?
We will have the best beds with the best naps!
Aunt Stephs will hold me and play with me in heaven.
We can have camp fires in the green green grass and roast marshmellows.
I will hold Shelby and she can sleep in the bed with all of us she is our beatiful (boodafull) baby.
What will my diamond earrings look like?
Are all the babies that the Pharoah killed in heaven?
What does Moses look like?
Why isn't everybody going to be in heaven?
Oh how I love her!!
"God will never leave you empty.
If something is taken away,
He will replace it with something better.
If He denies your request in a certain area,
it is because He wishes
to give you what is best.
If He asks you to put something down,
It is so you can pick up something greater."
Roy Lessin
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