Spiritual Strength

Faith is a living, bold trust in God's grace, so certain of God's favour that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it. Such confidence and knowledge of God's grace makes you happy, joyful and bold in your relationship to God and all creatures. The Holy Spirit makes this happen through faith. Because of it, you freely, willingly and joyfully do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love and praise the God who has shown you such grace.

Martin Luther

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according tothe riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge, that you may be filled with all fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:14-19

JOYfully in Him,

True Love

Let the LOVE of Jesus Christ pour out through your life....



JOYfully in Him,

Things Revealed

It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. Galatians 2:20

Our trip to Galveston Texas has left me in a dark room of self examination.

Oh God, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Psalm 51: 10-12

He used this experience to bring me into a brokeness that I have never trully called my own.

The sacrafices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Psalm 51:17

God has revealed to me some things within my heart that I have truly been ignoring and through this experience has brought them to the surface not allowing me to stomach them anymore.

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Galatians 1:10

I can not serve both sin and God, both self and Christ and I have been trying to live between them in my serving. I have only one master that I am a slave to and that is Christ and His righteousness.

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. Romans 6:17

I long only to serve God and His righteousness, to live by the Spirit, to crucify the flesh, live for Christ, have an undivided heart, labor constanly in love, live consistently in devotion to the love of Him who died for me giving me daily breath and strengthening me to glorify and please only Him and no one else in this world.

"The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?" Hebrews 13:6

JOYfully in Him,

What's going on....

Today we are going to be finishing (hopefully) up the paint job we started on Wednesday. It has turned out to be a lot more work than we first thought, imagine that! Go figure that painting 4 massive walls in 4 different ways would be difficult :0). I think it will be awesome when it is all done if it is done correctly. Tonight the youth group is coming over for our Taste and See Friday gathering which is always a great time. Tomorrow we are going to spend the day shopping, just the girls, at Ikea and various other places! It may end up just being me and 1 or 2 other ladies but it will still be a great time.

Other things going on is that we will be leaving on Thursday for Mission GTX, which is a small mission trip to Galveston, Tx where we will be seriously laboring in love with a ministry down there. It is going to be an experience for us all.

We are anxiously waiting for our picture and information on our sponsored child, Olupot. I can not tell you how much my heart is already connected to this little boy. We decided to find a little boy around the same age as our oldest son, so he is 7 and he lives in Uganda. Our prayer is that God will use us and Compassion to transform this little boys life along with his family and bring him to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. We are also very hopeful that God will send us one day to Uganda to this precious little boy.

Other things that fill our days are a twice a month women's prayer group, weekly devotional in A Heart Like His, David by Beth Moore, Soul Cafe... Wednesday night youth class, Thursday young ladies bible study and of cours Sunday, the Lord's day along with every 1st and 3rd Sunday being set apart for a Romans study at our house for a young marrieds group. It is good to be serving the Lord!! That is all I can say :0).

World Vision with Compassion

The Celebrate Freedom festival we went to last week encouraged us to look into sponsoring a child through World Vision. Shane and Shane talked a little about it on stage and we looked at the booth that they had set up there. I knew immediately that this is something that was not only worthy but urgent of our attention as a family. When we got home I looked up World Vision and a few days later I found another place you can sponsor poverty stricken children through called Compassion. Tomorrow we are going to sit down as a family and choose a child to sponsor each month. Thise eving while visiting Compassion I found their blog and was greatly convicted further and encouraged by THIS article written by a mother. I also found these little Youtube videos about sponsorship....

Jeremy Camp

Rich Mullins

Rebecca St. James

It is so easy to block our minds from thinking about these serious situations going on around the world but we have a chance to make a difference in a cihld's or family's life for just 30-40 dollars a month. Let us love one another not with just words but in action!

JOYfully in Him,

The Prayer

I love this song by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli:

Prayer Reflection

Prayer is the breath of the Christian life.

Martin Luther

(Don't forget to breathe today)

JOYfully in Him,