Grace, Grace God's Grace...

Grace, grace, God’s grace,

Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sin.
Anyone else remember this song?  We don't sing it at church anymore (we do more Praise&Worship style), but as a child we sang this hymn and I can remember hearing the harmonies and trying to follow the notes so I'd sing the right part.  Ah, childhood innocence!  I never paid attention to the words.  I just liked the melody of it.
But as an adult I read these words and am awed by the grace that He has lavished on me.  Until 2002, I thought that to be a Christian meant that I had to follow a set of rules that someone else made for me.  I hadn't really read the bible for myself and had no idea what grace was.  But by the grace (no pun intended) of God, my father-in-law's teaching, and Bob George's message on grace I came to know the true freedom that being a Jesus follower can bring.
Grace allows for those times when you just make the wrong decision.  Grace allows for those times when you just say the wrong words.  Grace allows for me to not be making list after list of every sin I've committed every minute of the day.  And heaven forbid I were to die before I could ask for forgiveness for something.  God created the entire universe in 6 days...I think He knows when I commit a sin.  I don't think He needs me to remind Him.  I realize the importance of acknowledging that I've done something displeasing to Him.  But the better response is to thank Him for the work He did over 2000 years ago on Calvary when Jesus died and forgave every sin of every person that would ever live (past, present, and future).  If I have to keep asking for forgiveness then doesn't that mean He needs to die over and over and over again.  He died ONCE for ALL (Romans 6:10, 1 Peter 3:18) not He died for my gossip on Tuesday, my jealousy on Friday, and don't forget my lack of faith---He died for that on Monday!  So silly...
The point is that grace was given freely and it is a gift.  We have to receive the gift from the Giver of life and then we walk in it.  When you truly love Christ and desire to be like Him, you don't want to have sin in your life.  Granted it is still there and we will all sin (present company included) much more that we want to, but there it is--GRACE!

'he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace.'  Ephesians 1:5-7

Thank you God for your matchless grace...grace that is greater than all my sin...
For more thoughts on grace, hop on over to Chatting at the Sky and check out to 31 days of grace series...
Grace that is greater than all our sin  I don't know who this guy is, but he has an awesome rendition of the hymn...take a minute to listen it's well worth your 3 minutes :-)

It's Beginning To Look Alot Like Christmas...

OK, so not really!  It's still about 75 degrees here during the day (which will change as of tonight according to John on WYFF 4).  But it is time to start thinking about Christmas cards if you want to get them out on time.  What kind of cards do you send?  Or do you send any at all?  Photo cards are a great choice for Christmas cards!  Shutterfly has an awesome selection of photo cards to choose from.  What better way to catch up family and friends with your life over the past year than to send a photo card?  They can see how your kids have grown (or dog, cat, etc. if you don't have kids) during the year.  There are so many neat ways to do them.  You can do anything you can think of!
As for our family this year, I love the selections found in the Religious Christmas card section.  For us, Christmas is about Jesus so what better way to show everyone?  In the past, we've used pictures that were taken professionally and ones I've taken myself.  It is so simple to upload your picture, type in your greeting, and order the cards!  There are so many to choose from I haven't decided which one we're gonna use this year!  You'll have to wait and see!
Shutterfly also has Address labels you can use throughout the Christmas season!  I love this time of year and am looking forward to designing our own one of a kind Christmas cards this year!  How about you?  Check out the links to Shutterfly I've included in this post to get started!  If you decide to do photo cards...send us one!



(from Agility, Ability-Diane Holleman)



Pictures of Grace...

Over at Chatting at the Sky today a picture parade of grace is being held.  This picture represents grace to me in so many ways...the grace that was extended to us when He led us to Zach and made him part of our forever family..the child of my heart.  The grace that this mama extends by letting this boy keep all this HAIR!

And this one...grace that He gave us when He blessed us with a child from my body...a child that is not perfect physically but is on so many other levels...the innocence!

 

And last but not least this one....the grace extended to me when I was laying in a hospital bed in pre-term labor at 34 weeks...the promise He gave me that all would be well...what else can I say?

Happy Halloween or Harvest or Pumpkin Day (whatever you want to call it)!

Yesterday I shared some Thanksgiving tips out of the book Homespun Memories for the Heart.  Today I thought I'd give some tips for celebrating fall (or Halloween).  Since Halloween actually falls on Sunday (although most festivals and trick-or-treating will be done Saturday night) there are some great suggestions to celebrate that are church friendly.  Even if you don't believe in celebrating Halloween you can celebrate the Harvest.
Let's begin with celebrating Halloween.  We dress our kids up and go to festivals and they go trick-or-treating.  We don't get involved in the 'spooky' or 'satan-ish' aspects of Halloween.  Our kids just have fun with other kids.  One great idea is to have a Halloween party for your children and thier friends.  Zach went to one this weekend where they played games, had fun food, and just played like kids.  What fun!  If you didn't want to make it about Halloween, have it after or a few weeks before and call it a Harvest Party.  Have a bonfire (roast hot dogs and smores), hayride, games, and anything else you can think of.
Another idea is if you live in a neighborhood get together with some other families and make it a group outting.  Dress the kids up and go door to door.  Maybe even have a party before or after with cool Halloween themed treats!  Call it a Pumpkin Party!  We are planning to take our boys with my neices and go around my parents neighborhood on the golf carts (maybe even dress up the golf cart).  All fun things to make memories with the kiddos that doesn't involve scary things.
Ok so for the Sunday night part of the Halloween deal....some people think that churches don't even need to be involved with any aspect of the "devil's holiday" and that's OK.  Some churches use the day as a time to reach out to unchurched kids or to provide somewhere for their own kids to go that is not going to get them in trouble.  They have fun festivals, trunk-or-treat, or 'judgement' houses.  One idea in the Homespun book is to have a Hallelujah night...oh how I wish I'd thought of this earlier!!  Have the kids dress up in their favorite bible character, animal, or theme (family) and hold a fall festival.  You could have a pumpkin carving contest where the carving has to be based on an aspect from the bible.  What a great time of fellowship that doesn't involve "Halloween"!
Whatever you decide to do this weekend with your kids for Halloween (celebrate it or ignore it) go out and make some memories together!  Show your children that they can be the Light in an evil world!  Show them that Christians can have fun and praise Jesus all at the same time :-)

'The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.'  John 1:5

Simply Thanksgiving...

I recently won a gift pack from a blog contest that included a 'Homespun Memories for the Heart' book.  It is by Karen Ehman, Kelly Hovermale, & Trish Smith and it is great!  It's full of fun ideas to make holidays, birthdays, and any other day you can think of unforgettable.  This goes along so well with the idea of simplicity I've talked about.  What could be better than saving money by scaling down the gifts and making memories by spending quality time with the family?
One of the great idea's that stuck out for me was an acitivity for Thanksgiving.  I've always felt that Thanksgiving was an important holiday not just for it's meaning to America, but also a time that we can set aside to show our kid's how important it is to be thankful to God for all the blessings He's given to us.  But I've always just let the occassion pass and never really made Thanksgiving the example I wanted it to be.  So this year, I'm going to use an idea presented in the book that leads up to Thanksgiving.  They call it the Fruit of the Spirit in a Horn of Plenty.  Nine days before Thanksgiving you start filling the Horn of Plenty with one fruit per day that signifies a Fruit of the Spirit.  You can use your imagination (I'm gonna use the ones in the book) for which fruits to use.  You also memorize Galations 5:22-23 over those days and on Thanksgiving your kids can recite it for their relatives.  Fun!
There is also another activity that is mentioned that I definitely want to do one year and that is serve the Thanksgiving meal at a homeless shelter.  The ladies in the book recommend not eating breakfast before you go so that the kids really get a sense of how the people at the shelter feel most of the time.  What a lesson to learn...some things can't be learned by just hearing, they need to be experienced.  I'm thinking my kids are a little young for this yet, but maybe it's never too soon to learn! 
What about you?  Are you ready to make holidays more than 'Hallmark' days?  Do you want to make memories and teach your children (or grandchildren) about Jesus?  Make them not so much about materialism and themselves?  I know I am and this year I'm choosing to do something about it!

'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.'  Galatians 5:22-23

Homespun Memories for the Heart (purchase info here)

Frugal Friday

Who doesn't love to save a little money?  I know I do!  We want to save all the money we can so that I can continue to work part-time and the hubby can stay self-employed.  It is so important to us to be able to invest all the time we can into our kids...
So, I thought that I'd share a few of the websites that I use to look for bargains.  The list is just a place for you to begin...you can search and find deals all day long (or for as much time as you have).  The thing to remember is once you find a good site you can trust--look on the sidebar where the links are posted.  They will also put sites on their blog that they follow to find deals.  It takes time, but it all depends on how much you want/need to save money.  So here comes the list:

She Saves

Southern Savers  (this is the most local one I have found)

Couponing to Disney

Free Stuff on Facebook

Saving Cents with Sense

Frugal Coupon Living

Moms Need to Know

Living as Mom

Ok- I think this is enough to get you started!  Word of caution--saving money can be addictive :-)

Between a Rock and a Hard Place -Journey to Our Son-Part II

I've shared a little bit of the story about how Zach came to be our forever son, but I thought that I'd give you a little more of the story...I could write about it everyday for the next year and still have something to say!  But for today I want to share about the hand of God and how He was all around us even though we really couldn't see Him (or at least I couldn't).  Kinda like in the book of Esther--His name isn't mentioned one time, but it's assumed that He is there.  Better yet, you know He's there because who else could've worked things out for the Israelites but Him?
But I digress...when we got Zach's referral in April 2004 (this was after losing our first child because the DNA didn't match with the 'mother') we were told we'd have him home in 6 months or so.  We were beyond excited!  We planned a trip to visit him that June...a trip that I regretted at the time, but now am so thankful we made.  As we left our sweet baby boy in the arms of the facilitator that June she said, "No worries, you will be back in 2 months to get him."  Yeah right!  We learned soon after to take everything the lady said with a grain of salt.  July, August, then September passed and still no Zach.  We got stuck at every point you can imagine.  International adoption is NOT for the faint of heart.  I had to depend on God with every fiber of my being.  I wanted to get on an airplane and get in someone's face and tell them to get the papers off their desk and get them moving.  This was my child!  And their slow poke, money hungry leaders were in my way.  (Not very Christ-like, but that was reality).
We finally began to move through the system when BAM-out of nowhere we got the worst possible news.  It seems that the birth mother had been married when she was pregnant.  In order to give a child up for adoption in Guatemala the mother had to be single...you can't imagine the feelings that we had.  She was supposedly divorced and there was a paper somewhere in Guatemala that said this.  Getting hands on it was another thing altogether.  It just so happened all of this was occurring during the holidays.  Guatemalans don't just close on Christmas Day...they close for like a week or more.  Finally...the paper was produced!  Was it real?  I didn't care.  All I knew was that it meant we could get our son.
Did I mention that during this time Jon's mom was sick with cancer?  We had hoped and prayed that she'd beat it, but in October (on our anniversary actually) of that year we found out that her battle would soon end.  We wanted to go get Zach and bring him home so he and Mimi could meet.  But God had other plans.  We had planned to travel to Guatemala the week before we actually went.  But there were riots and the airport had men with guns in it and we didn't know if we could bring Zach home anyway...most of all, Mimi was admitted to the Hospice House for what we thought was an intestinal obstruction.  The day we were to leave for Guatemala...Mimi wrapped her arms around Jesus and was ushered into His throne room. 
We were so defeated.  This wasn't how it was supposed to be.  Where was He?  Why did He let things happen like this?
Less than a week later on Jan. 19 2005 we were in Guatemala with our precious child ready to bring him home.  Looking back now, I can see God all over our journey.  He allowed delays and doubts so that I would trust Him completely not in my own resources.  He allowed Mimi to die before we brought Zach home because He know how important Zach would be in healing my husband and his dad.  I know God allowed us to visit Zach so that we could bring him to Mimi in videos and pictures...I don't think she wanted to meet him in person this side of heaven...I think she knew it was better for everyone that way.
During the journey I couldn't see God.  I didn't know where He was.  I prayed and read the bible and listened to music that calmed my soul.  But in the midst of the storm I couldn't see Him.  Oh but He was there.  He never left.  He was what held me together and kept me sane.  He gave me strength I didn't know I had to make the journey.  He put boulders in our way...but He gave us rock-climbing gear to get over them.
And what a story do we have to tell of His faithfulness, love, and kindness!

Mimi and her boys Christmas 2004

'Adoption is not for the faint of heart, but for those who knows He has His part.'

'but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.'  Isaiah 40:31

I wait for you lord
My soul my soul waits
Well I wait for you lord
In your word I place my trust
In your word I rest
In your word I place my trust
For I know I must wait
Thou shalt not live on bread alone
But by every word of God
I will not live by bread alone
But by every word
(lyrics by Jeremy Camp)