It's a first...

I'm trying out a new blog sight...seeing if it is easier to post here than on blogger. In light of this first, I thought I would share another first...my first pic I took with my DSLR. I love it! Yet, sadly, I've not been able to recreate this sort of beauty from my camera since. Maybe I should spend a little more time practicing, huh? At any rate...enjoy!

Wear your hard hat...

Updated: Here's the new look...for now...the one I wanted off of TCBOTB won't work..so alas...here is where I have arrived! Sooo...what do you think? Is it a keeper or should I keep hunting?

...cuz we are under construction! :) Be gracious as I try to implement a new template when I have absolutely no clue what on earth I am doing!  Wish me luck and look forward to a new look!

Beloved

I am single. I have no Valentine. (tear). And yet I am part of the greatest love story ever told...I've experienced the greatest love one could ever hope to experience...

"Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." John 15:13

His life was given up for mine...

"He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" Romans 8:32

And nothing will ever separate me from Him or His love for me...

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ...Yet in all things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:35, 37-39

He is the Lord Jesus Christ, my Savior and Lord, who loved me with such great love that He gave His life that I might be washed clean of my sin and be made a king and priest to His glory for ever...

"...Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. " Revelation 1:5-6

Yes, it is true. I am His, He is mine....

"I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. " Song of Solomon 6:3.

[Beloved: to be dear to the heart or to be greatly loved (according to dictionary.com).]

And though it is true that I have failed Him often, I have been distracted by the things of this world, and yet He loves me without measure and without bounds and He is ever faithful to me....

"...I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you..." Jeremiah 31:3

Do you know Him too? Do you have this same Love of mine? Oh, friend, did you know? You, too, are dear to His heart. You, too, are greatly loved by my Jesus. You are beloved.

"For God so loved the world (that's me and you) that He (the Father) gave His only begotten Son (The Lord Jesus Christ), that whoever (this means YOU!) believes (or trusts) in Him (The Lord Jesus Christ) should not perish (death in hell) but have everlasting life (live in heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ forever and ever)." John 3:16

Wouldn't you agree that my love story is the best love story ever told? :)

A Prayer...

Dear Father in Heaven,

I come before you today with a heavy and sorrowing heart. I thank You for being sovereign and having a plan that is greater than we could ever imagine. But, Lord, sometimes I just don't understand when these plans include the dying of young children. Your Word says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."(Isaiah 55:8-9) So, Lord, I choose to trust You and Your plans, today, even in the midst of sorrow and in my own inability to understand the ways You choose.

Father, we've prayed for Eli Horn for so many weeks and months and even years. And today You chose to take him Home to You. I never met Eli but he was such a strong little boy, enduring such pain and trial and physical suffering during his short life...and so many smiles in the midst. Thank You that he is no longer suffering, that he is now pain free. Thank You for loving him so much and for delighting to bring him Home to You to rest. Thank You for sending your Beloved Son to die on the cross for Eli Horn.

But, Father, those who love him are left behind with aching hearts and aching arms. Care for his parents and brother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and loved ones, Father. Give them Your Spirit of comfort in this loss of their son, grandson, nephew, cousin, friend. I trust You, Father, to care for them and guide them through this immense sorrow.

Words can not express but I thank You that there is One who intercedes for us when words are just not adequate. And, Father, this is one of those times.

I commit the Horn family into Your Loving, sovereign and comforting arms today and for all the days before us.

In Your Son's Name I pray these things,

Amen.

Believe and give thanks.

A friend and I were talking many months ago about prayer...about having the faith to not only ask the Almighty God for something but to thank Him for it before it has even been visibly answered. Wow! That is the sort of faith I want to have...faith in knowing that He will answer and it will be the best answer...and faith to thank Him and praise Him for it before I can see it for myself. That takes faith.

"...whatever you ask for in prayer...believe..." Mark 11:24

I pray that we will be a generation that prays...and a generation that has such great faith and trust in the One we pray to that we would thank Him for His answers. I'm praying for many things that I don't know the answer to...but I know I can thank Him for listening, thank Him for the answers yet to be revealed to me while I "...sit still until you know how the matter will turn out..." (Ruth 3:18).

And I've been thanking Him for His faithfulness to me this year...the year 2012. It hasn't happened yet. But I know my God and I know He will be faithful so I can thank Him before He has shown me all the ways He will be faithful to me this year.

"...pray until you believe God--until with whole hearted sincerity you can thank Him for the answer...there is nothing that solidifies faith as being so sure of the answer that you can thank God for it..." Streams in the Desert, January 4

A New Year, A New You

Last year, unknowingly, I chose one word to characterize my year. I did a study on TRUTH and that is what my year was shaped by. One small study and my whole year was revolutionized! The Lord kept impressing on me this need for TRUTH in my life and so it became my central theme. I must tell you that this was much more effective in changing me than any New Years Resolutions I've ever made in the past.

And so this year, I've decided to do the same idea again, only with a little more purpose. I began to assess how I wanted to be different in 2012 and could have quickly come up with a long resolution to-do list. But, instead, I looked at the common factor in all that I wanted to accomplish and came up with one word--DISCIPLINE.

I want to be a more disciplined person. I'm so undisciplined that several years ago I began a blog series on discipline and never actually completed it! *gasp* So, instead of writing that list of resolutions, I choose to focus on this one thing for the Lord to nurture in my life...a life characterized by discipline. If my mind, my attitude, my heart is characterized by discipline then all the things that I could have put on my resolution list will slowly but surely come to fruition. Not only that, but I will be a changed person and it will be a change not just for 2012 but will hopefully effect me for many years to come. I like this idea of choosing one central focus...it keeps me from getting lost in the details and keeps me focused for the year with a realistic hope of success!

What about you? What are you seeking after in this new year?

A letter of Christ

Did you know that as a child of God you are a letter of Christ? A letter meant to be read and enjoyed by others. You have a message...a message for others from the Lord. A message of love and redemption and hope for the whole world to read and ponder. We are God's love letter to the world. Isn't that an awesome thought? Awesome in the sense that it is such an incredible privilege and responsibility. Where ever you walk, where ever you go, whatever you say, whatever you do, you are a letter to others from Christ.

"You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart." II Corinthians 3:2-3

*Derived from a passage from Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, by Joanna Weaver p.83*