Today was a day of gratitude and blessing for our church leadership and staff. I’m thankful for all they do and for the many ways they minister to me and so many others in our church family and community.
Blessings to all those minister and bless others.
This past Sunday I stopped by to visit my mom who lives in an assisted living facility. Before walking out of the house, I had grabbed an apple and a tangelo. I started munching on the apple while driving there, but I intended to offer the tangelo to my mom. However, as I was walking up to the entrance, a couple ladies were sitting outside enjoying the fresh air. One of them commented how delicious the tangelo looked. So I stretched out my hand offering it to her. I caught her by surprise and she was hesitant to take it. After insisting a few times, she consented and said that she would enjoy eating it a bit later. Hope the surprise unexpected gift of a simple tangelo made her feel a little bit special for at least one day! I’ll just take mom a tangelo on my next visit. 🙂
This is a truth that I’ve “known” for a long time, but I am coming to a new and deeper understanding of it at this point in my life. The 2 greatest commandments in Scripture teach us that we should love God with our whole being (heart, soul, mind and strength), then love our neighbor as ourselves. Neither one of these commandments focuses on ME and what I think I need. It’s about serving God and others. However, I often find my mind focused on what I am doing, accomplishing, feeling and needing rather than on God and those around me.
Over the past year, I said “good-bye” to many things that I valued in my life . . . to the point of feeling like I’ve even “lost” my very identity. Yet my identity and value is NOT in what I do. It doesn’t matter if I organize and run a home school group. It doesn’t matter if serve clients with my accounting degree. It doesn’t matter if I’m involved in service projects. It doesn’t matter if I have a great network of special people surrounding me. I cannot and should not rely on any of these aspects for my identity, though they may be great things in themselves. BUT I need to constantly rely on GOD to supply my true needs – not the needs I think I have. My identity is in HIM! My whole identity is in Christ, not in what I do for Him. My worth and value is all found in HIM! Wholeness and completeness in my heart and life are found in Christ.
In a recent sermon, we were challenged to consider: if Jesus is all that there is – the only thing on the menu – is that enough for me? Or do I feel like I need Jesus and a good job, or Jesus and a purpose, or Jesus and a great friend, or Jesus and a nice house. Is Jesus truly enough in my life, or am I constantly looking for more? This is a challenge for me right now. I know in my head that, yes, Jesus is enough. But then I continue to live and allow my emotions to tell me that He is not enough. I dwell on what I don’t have and what I think I need instead of focusing on the sufficiency of Christ!
Steve Camp sings a beautiful song reminding me that through all life, every circumstance I may face, Jesus is all I need. He’s my anchor and will never let me go! To listen to this song, click: He’s All You Need by Steve Camp.
May you allow Jesus to be everything for you today. He is sufficient! He is more than sufficient if we allow Him to be!
The weather has started to feel more like spring, and nature is starting to look more like spring! I’m sad I missed taking a picture of the the baby rabbits in their nest before they disappeared.
Tulip – love this color!
Bird’ on her Nest in our Forsythia Bush
Apple Tree Blossoms
Apple Tree Blossoms
Tree Stump
Yes, even the bright yellow color of dandelions are beautiful!
Yesterday we had the privilege of volunteering at a local church who was hosting an organization called Feed My Starving Children. We enjoyed having another home school family join us in this venture. We worked together to form an assembly line to pour 4 ingredients through a funnel into a bag which was then weighed, sealed, and boxed, ready for shipment. Our little home school group completed about 9 boxes containing 36 bags in each, totaling 324 meals (each bag was designated to feed up to 6 people). For the 2 hour shift we were there, we packed enough boxes to feed 85 people for an entire year. We were instructed to cheer loudly everytime our group filled a complete box. The little cheer we yelled: Keepin’ ’em alive at table 5! The cheer indicated to a “runner” that we had a box to pick up from our table. It was a lot of fun!
Our home school work crew modeling our fashionable hairnets!
Beginning of the assembly line.
Full assembly line. What a great crew!
Goal: help to beautify the roadside by ridding it of trash. We were hoping to cover at least a half-mile down the road – both sides of the road – but 45 minutes later we had 3 large bags filled way before we hit that half-mile mark. Guess we have more clean up to do to complete the task. We’ll keep chipping away at it 1 bag at a time. Thank you’s go to my hubby & daughter for their willingness to contribute to this project. We were grateful for the beautiful sunny day even tho there was still water in the ditches. Be careful if you join by cleaning up the roadside in your neighborhood. Be sure to check for ticks when you are finished! We found 2 on us. See The Frugal Berry – Solutions for Ticks for more information on how to deal with ticks (this is from our personal experience and research).
5/13/13 UPDATE: We continued to take a trash bag with us each day on our 1 mile walk and many full bags later, we finally completed this task. However, a day or two later, we continued to find “new” trash along the road. Guess I should try to do a quick clean up every week.
This beautiful mallard sat still long enough for a couple photos before freaking out and flying away.
It was the first sunny day we’ve had in a while. Guess this turtle decided it was time to sun bathe. He was much more compliant with the photography session than the hissing goose! 🙂
This goose was not very happy with me. Apparently, I was invading his comfort zone.
Do you ever feel it is difficult to remain focused in your home schooling efforts? It’s so easy to become side-tracked and lose sight of the original purpose and goals of why we started this home school journey. I need to remind myself to take some time periodically to review WHY we do what we do, and then remember to sift all other decisions through that filter. It’s OK to say NO to some great opportunities if they do not help to reach our goals. Take time to STAY ON TRACK !