Welcome to Blog Your Blessings Sunday.I've been reading a lot lately about how people nationwide are struggling financially as gas and food prices rise. The stimulus payments that will start to flow to Americans tomorrow will, by necessity, go to help fill the gap these higher prices are causing. I realize steep inflation is forewarned in the Bible, but living through it doesn't make it easier.When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, "Two pounds of wheat for a day's wages, and six pounds of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!" Revelation 6:
Welcome to Blog Your Blessings Sunday.Continued from What Caused My Enlarged Thyroid?When I finally got to the biopsy appointment I was sporting a mild fever and felt crummy. I snoozed forty-five minutes as best I could with shivers before I finally was called to the procedure room. The doctor came in and recounted what I already knew about the thyroid mass."Not all tumors are cancerous," he said.Wait. I had a tumor? I thought I had a goiter. But then I understood they were the same. Hearing the word tumor suddenly made things very clear. I had a serious condition, and according to the doctor, a tumor is not caused by iodine deficiency. That blew all my hope of a peaceful resolution, especially when he said they begin to look at biopsying when tumors reach 1-2 cm. At over 4 cm, mine needed
Welcome to Blog Your Blessings Sunday.I have three blessings to post today.1. IJ, now almost 13 years old, went hunting with his dad yesterday morning for youth weekend and he saw a buck. Jim said it was about 140 pounds, old and gray. Not many get to see or shoot one of those. IJ said he didn't shoot it because he didn't have a good shot and he thought he wasn't allowed to shoot a doe. But he regrets it.Jim and IJ are out again early today for another round and hope to see that deer. IJ says that this time if he sees the gray doe, he's going to shoot it. He has a good chance because the deer are bedding down on the bank just beyond our playground (the old llama pen extension).2. Apparently, deer isn't all IJ saw yesterday morning. Later that day, he came to us with a tick on his neck and another crawling up the front of his shirt. He freaked a little seeing how earlier in the week we had to dig one that had sunk itself deep into his hip.Then CJ found a tick crawling up her leg, s
Welcome to Blog Your Blessings Sunday.The Red Sox are 3 and 0 in the World Series. Need I say more???Yes. I do.GO SOX!!!!Technorati Tags: Red Sox ^ BYB Sunday ^ blessings ^ World Series
Welcome to Blog Your Blessings Sunday.We're completing year three in this mobile home and even though it is still small and things have broken down and fallen apart during this time, I'm tremendously grateful for the roof over our head and that the mobile home continues to stand up under the continual beating of six boisterous kids while we pray lots for money and building supplies and do what we can to begin building again.(Boy, was that ever a long sentence!) This is answer to prayer that we walk in daily--literally.Thank you God the roof is still up, the floors haven't fallen through, the ants haven't eaten it to sawdust, the bugs went away, the sink faucet works (yes, the handle is still broken), the roof leaks no more and some less, and we somehow manage to stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter (a miracle in itself in this trailer).Technorati Tags: blessing ^ Sunday ^ bugs ^ mobile home ^ broken
Welcome to Blog Your Blessings Sunday.Jim and I married when we were 19 and 20 years old. Some said we shouldn't get married, and others said we wouldn't last longer than a year. Fourteen years later, against statistics, we are still together.Life hasn't been easy. We disagree a lot and get in each other's way frequently, especially in this small house, but we are committed to God and each other. Today I'm more thankful for my husband than I've ever been. It's not that he's become a super guy over the years, though he's done a lot of changing for the good, but it's more that I'm learning to see my husband as God sees him and love him as God has loved me.I've screwed up life so well that I don't deserve anything good I have. Yet God loved me through my garbage. He didn't deal with me according to my sin as He could have, but he scolded me when necessary in love to help me see the error of my ways, and then nurtured me back from a dark pit to life in Him far more times than
Welcome to Blog Your Blessings Sunday.We've seen three ticks, so far this spring, one of them in my 1 year old daughter's ear. AAAAHHHHH! Fortunately, it was walking around and was easy to remove. However, the incident started me on another round of "I hate living in the woods. I hate perpetual camping." Especially now that we have a dog.As I parked the car after returning from church, today, I muttered "home, dirt, home" and then watched the dust settle in our driveway. Something triggered the memory of our former home and the poison ivy spread throughout. I stopped complaining. Wait--we have no poison ivy. At least not where we normally walk. Poison berry bushes, yes, but no poison ivy.After getting poison ivy six times the first year we moved into our old home several years ago, because it was all over, I felt our family couldn't go outside. Even though I hate ticks, I don't feel that way about them.There will always be troubles no matter where we go. So I've exchanged poison i
Welcome to Blog Your Blessings Sunday on this wonderful Easter day. Can you guess what blessing I'm blogging about today?The resurrected JESUS!I have an Easter greeting card for you. There is so much I could blog about Jesus. I could try to tell you all He's done for me, but there isn't enough time or space to share it all and what He means to me. I say with 100% accuracy, though, that Jesus is the supreme blessing of all blessings in my life.I owe Jesus everything--literally everything, from the land I sit on to my husband, to my kids, to the very capability to use my limbs and think. In August 2004 I suffered for ten to fourteen days from what doctors could only guess was viral encephalitis. I had become an invalid--unable to eat, think, stand, focus my vision, or move my limbs at will. By God's grace alone am I fully restored today, and I cherish small simple functions I used to take for granted. Praise be to God!Have something good in life? Anything? (I just know there is some
Welcome to Blog Your Blessings Sunday. This Sunday, we have a blessing indeed. After all the waiting, The Building Brows are finally in Key Magazine in today's issue of The New York Times.If you can't get to a newsstand, not to worry. You can read Eight is More Than Enough online, pictures and all. (There is a free 14-day trial for unregistered readers.) It doesn't show our house under construction, but you can see lots of them here by browsing.If you're visiting after reading the article and want to learn more about our Chore Board and Privilege Ladder including how to make them, please click on the Discipline System category in the sidebar. You may also enjoy reading my NY Times photo shoot behind-the-scenes post and seeing ten-year-old CJ's slide show of our NY Times photo shoot.In case you are wondering, the pictures in this photo essay were taken this winter--proof that the first part of Vermont's winter was pretty snowless. The 2006-2007 winter season has been all holiday s
My mom and brother went to Africa for a few weeks with a team of people several years ago. Their African hosts welcomed them with open arms, feeding them every place they went whether or not they had just eaten. They came back with many stories--particularly bathroom stories.Toilets consisted of holes in the ground where they had to strategically place their footing and balance while doing their business. Discreetness was minimal.At first chance to bathe, their hosts offered hot showers--the royal treatment which they reserved for guests. Thrilled about a hot shower, they accepted. Their leader shook his head and headed for a cold shower. The rest of the team waited for a pot of cold water to heat over an open fire which they discovered made a very long wait for barely tepid water. They quickly learned to take fast, cold showers if they wanted to be clean.The first thing my mom wanted to do when she returned home was take a hot shower. It was no surprise that she rejoiced for the next
On my way to church, this morning, I came upon bottlenecked traffic at an underpass about a mile down the road. As I approached, I saw fire trucks. The car in front of me was trying to turn onto the road, so I drove around. On the way by, I saw more fire trucks surrounding the first house on the right.I recognized that house. It was the one I had admired as I grew up for it's size, modern country design, and natural wood exterior. More important, it was the one my son SM identified last year as "A's house," the girl he felt constantly irritated by for the entire first grade.My heart sunk as I thought of her and how she looked sad in SM's class photo. I prayed for the family for the rest of the morning and knew that as soon as I got home, I would tell SM to pray, too. I hoped it would soften his heart toward A even though he'd said nothing about her irritating him this year now that she was in a different second grade.This Blog Your Blessings Sunday I am suddenly grateful anew for m
