November 21, 2008

Another Give Away at Clan McLeod

Gina at:



The Clan McLeod


is doing another fabulous giveway! I have already won a creative artsy clip board set from Margot at the Sheltered Shop. Thanks Gina!

But this next give away takes the cake for me. It's a new blog design by Judi at:



Doodlebug Designs


WoW, How generous of these ladies. If I happen to win this one, I'll be using it for a new make over at our ministry blog:




KOTKEM


Judi is currently working on a design for my new homeschool blog that I haven't exactly announced yet called Kingdom Academy. You are welcome to pop on over and see what we are all about and I'll be sure to let everyone know when the new design is complete. I'm so excited! If you are in the need of new makeover yourself, be sure to visit Gina for an opportunity to win a new blog design from Judi at Doodlebug Designs!

November 19, 2008

Blessings From the Lord

Tony came home today and needed to talk to me. The look on his face caused my stomachs to do flip flops. With all the talk of economy and layoffs I've just sort of tried to push it out of my mind. Everytime I read or hear about it I pray but when the thoughts of "what will do?" came I just bound them up. I figured honestly, there was no sense in worrying because that wouldn't fix anything and I've had a lot on my plate lately.

So..Tony's boss man called him to the side and told him he needed to talk to him. He was laying off every driver but 2. He hasn't had to lay anyone off in 15 years. Tony has only been there since May this year, and other drivers have been there for years so Tony pretty much figured he was going to be one of the ones let go. Then his boss man told him that he was one of the 2 he was keeping. What?! Tony is loyal and he lives his faith in Christ and his boss knew that my husband wasn't someone he wanted to lose. God found favor on Tony today and he still has his job. PRAISE GOD!!!!!! He will be on shorter time (4 days instead of 5) but his boss is doing every thing he can to help us out. His boss is even going to give my husband the week of Thanksgiving off, so that can be his waiting week in case he has to let Tony off a week for Christmas, this way he will be able to draw unemployment. (He was going to be off 1/2 that week anyway.) How gracious of his boss to do this!

I'm just moved beyond words.

Thank-you Abba Daddy, for taking such good care of us and for allowing dh to keep the job that brings him home to me at night. I would have been saddened to have lost our family time over the holidays if dh would have had to have gone back over the road. Lord I love you, and there are no words to express my gratitude. I praise You and give You all the glory. I know that You had your hand upon us. I lift up to you all of the families who are going through this, I ask that You lead each employee who was laid off to the right place. Lead them to You Father, and show them You are the Provider! In Jesus name, Amen.

God is in Control

I want to share something that a close friend of mine shared with me last week. I pray that it will help you to view things that happen that we don't understand and often make us question God in a different light.

I have a close friend, she and her husband have three children and are devout Christians. This friend helped to lead me to homeschooling. They struggled to make ends meet like many families with one income do. Things got really bad and she had a choice, her choice was to either go to work so that they could keep their home or continue homeschooling and lose it. At the time I had the hardest time understanding her decision. She chose to continue homeschooling and that they did lose their home.

That was several years ago maybe 4 or 5. She never understood why they had to lose their home, it was such a sacrifice for them. BUT the one thing she knew was that God had called her to homeschool and she could not disobey that call. Last week she called me, she said, "Jen, the Lord finally showed me why we had to lose our home. We found out that another couple bought it and the woman became very sick (just like she and her son had while living there) they discovered that behind the walls of that home, there was thick black mold growing. Had we stayed it might have cost us our lives, and had we discovered it, which I don't think we would have, we wouldn't have had the money to fix it."

I was stunned. Even though it looked so bleak and hopeless to us, and we questioned why God would let them suffer so, I mean they were good Christians and were speaking blessing over themselves. How could this be?

Now we know. He had saved their lives. He required that they suffer a small amount to save them from disaster. He protected them and had their best interest in mind. He knew all along. I wonder how it made God feel to know that we were questioning Him?

What I learned through this was just to trust in His plan no matter what. Nothing takes Him by surprise and if we can remember this through trials and tribulations I believe that this will strengthen us and remind us to praise Him in the storm, to rejoice through trials and persecution.

James1:2-8

2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

November 15, 2008

7x7

I just read about this today at Angie's blog Bring the Rain. I love it when God lines things up in my life. When He is speaking to me or showing me new things they have patterns and I see His focus in many different areas of my life. This week the girls and I have been focusing on praying for persecuted Christians and churches, nations who have no bible to read printed in their own languages, the ministries God is using to provide them with His word, and giving in general, being a servant, giving from your heart, the different ways we can give. Since we have started My Father's World its redirected me and my focus and for that I'll be eternally grateful. We have developed the sweetest habit of starting our homeschool days off with prayers, singing hymns and reading the bible. Our prayer time has gotten longer and longer, I love how when you spend time with the Lord constantly He leads you how to pray more and more. My heart has been praying for the girls more and then I visit Angie and read about her 7x7 prayer. Thank-you Lord for teaching me how to pray. Join us if you'd like, for the prayers visit Angie and grab the button.

November 14, 2008

A Quilt Give Away

Dana at the Old Red Barn Co. is giving away three quilts and let me tell you they are simply beautiful! Head on over there and check out how to get your chance to enter in!

November 13, 2008

Food for today

Show me your ways, O LORD,
teach me your paths;
guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long. . . .
Guard my life and rescue me;
let me not be put to shame,
for I take refuge in you.
May integrity and uprightness protect me,
because my hope is in you. (Psalm 25:4-5, 20-21)

Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD;
keep watch over the door of my lips.
Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil,
to take part in wicked deeds
with men who are evildoers;
let me not eat of their delicacies. (Psalm 141:3-4)

November 9, 2008

Storm Warrior/Spiritual Soldier

This has been the theme of what the Lord is teaching me lately. I'm trying to slowly absorb all that He is revealing to me because I want it to stick. I'm going to share some of what I'm learning. This first part is actually from a book I'm reading titled "Storm Warrior" by Mahesh and Bonnie Chavda.

Quote

The Prayer of Transformation

Together with our church family, Mahesh and I had gone to see the movie The Passion of Christ. The scenes of Jesus' trial, agony in the Garden, arrest and crucifixion were powerfully imprinted on my mind. As we came home I was overcome with a desire to go to the mountain of prayer. A fresh sense of the depth of God's love lay upon my heart as I recalled Jesus' sacrifice. I went out for a prayer walk.

The night was clear with stars overhead as I turned down the road leading out of our neighborhood. Tears streamed down my face as I was caught up in the reality of the splendor and spectacle of Calvary. My heart was captivated afresh by the intervention of great love that promises ultimate triumph over sin and the grave!

Replaying the scenes of Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane, I paused on the portrayal of His rising after His prayerful agony. Having folded Himself body, mind and spirit into the Father's hand, it showed Jesus standing and taking a single step. As His sandaled foot met the earth it came down upon the head of a serpent that had been lingering nearby during His travail. The skull of the snake cracked and was crushed under Christ's heel-all because of a simple step on the path of obedience to the Father.

The reality of that power of Christ welled up within me as I walked along. I began to worship Him and pray in my prayer language. The moment I uttered the first sound I could see with spiritual eyes the presence of a mighty gathering army of the Lord's hosts in the air overhead. An army was mustering to the cry of my heart. It was like the story of Elisha and his servant as an opposing army surrounded the city where they stayed. There were two armies, but the servant with natural eyes only saw one. He panicked and though all was lost. But the man of God replied, "No worries!" He prayed that the servant would see with true eyes, and ranks of spiritual warriors of light that had gathered on their behalf came into view: "And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha" (2 Kings 6:17)

As I walked along praying in the Spirit I, too, beheld them-angels and saints that have gone on to glory all mounted on horses coming from the heavens! They were ready to overturn the forces of darkness on the word of my prayers.

In that moment I realized that I was an ambassador for the Church in this generation. God was listening for the voice of His bride-and was ready to answer when she called! I was a vessel of incense, pouring out many prayers formed in the watches of the night by prayer groups around the world. As I was carried along with a heavenly gathering behind me, I thought of the soldiers serving on foreign fields in the global war on terror. Suddenly I saw a flash of light. I discerned that it shot in an arc from where I was walking over to a military base on the other side of the world where someone dear to us was serving. I felt that the prayers going up for him were being answered and that a breakthrough and time of refreshing was coming. It seemed that many prayers of many watches were suddenly being poured out for answers.

At an intersection in the road I heard the sound of several huge tractor trailer trucks roaring up the highway. I turned to discover that it was not trucks at all. I saw the effects of a fierce wind barreling down the valley toward me. In a moment it was upon me. Leaves and debris intermingled with stinging bursts of rain came from all directions. I could scarely stand in its force. The gusting wind and rain and flying debris seemed the only rebuttal the prince of power of the air could make to contradict prayer being loosed in the name of Jesus and the power of His blood! I began to laugh in triumph in the face of the wind and rain.

I pressed on in the wind storm and realized only later how dangerous that could have been. I was too busy singing Scripture to notice. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because He has anointed me to preach good news!" I sang. "This is the year of the favor of the Lord! This is the day of vengeance of our God!" When it occured to me there was no other person or vehicle out on the street, I wondered if I should turn back. But then I saw something else. Before me in a vision on either side of the sidewalk were two great looming trees. As I moved between them words from the book of Jude came to mind. I saw those trees as symbols of two evils sinking their ideology into the hearts and minds of a new generation of young Americans.

The unction to uproot those trees and deliver the young generation was so strong I called them by name: "You twice-dead trees of perversion and rebellion, I pull you up out of the heart and soul of America by the root." As words from Scripture came to mind I reached out and "uprooted" each of the trees in succession. I bound the powers of deception and seduction rampant in the secular culture invading our college campuses. At that instance there was a huge cracking and crashing sound, and every streetlight for blocks in every direction suddenly went black!

By now I was drenched. With rain whipping my face, I made a "visor" over my eyes with my hands and distinguished a single pair of headlights creeping along the road.

The car stopped beside me. "Mom?" It was our daughter Serah who had come out in the storm to look for me. Grateful to be out of the elements, I got in the car, and as we turned for home I began to tell her about my unusual experience. Just as I was recounting the crashing sound of the trees in the vision, our headlights illuminated an astounding fight. There, lying across the highway, were two gigantic upturned trees. The crash I heard as I "uprooted" the spiritual trees trying to take root in a new generation was the sound of those two enormous trees being ripped out of the ground in the wind!

When we finally reached home I recounted the story once more to the rest of my family. The telephone rang. It was the young soldier I had prayed for when I say the arc of light go to his military base on the other side of the world.

"How are you able to call? What's happening?" I asked. "A little while ago," he said, "the power on the entire military base shut down. We got permission to come outside and use our cell phones while they try to restore power to our station."

I knew that God was giving us a sign to reinforce our belief that prayers in Jesus' name are mighty. They are heard on high. They are attended by angels. They shake things in heaven and change things on earth.

The next morning we went out to see the aftermath of the storm. Blocking the highway lay the two trees, each measuring more than seventy feet in height! In the months that followed we began to see powerful breakthrough and transformation in the lives of young people we had been interceding for. These children of believing parents began to turn away from darkness and back to the Lord and His plan for their lives. The roots of bondage were broken.

Blessed and Broken
Storms in our lives, including the troubling events of our day, are meant for our transformation into the image of Jesus' glory. Pain is not meant to snuff out our lamps; pain is the oil that makes the flame burn brighter. Saint Francis Assisi is quoted as saying,"And in dying, we behold His glory." It is the eternal law of redemption.

Sometimes the breaking is voluntary, as Jesus showed us by laying down His life in obedience to the Father. (skipping to page 113) And there are times to allow God to break us and give us out to others. If you have fasted and rebuked, confessed the Word and persevered and your circumstances have not changed, look again to see how this trial can make you bread for the hungry. When you coorperate with God's breaking, you can smile at your betrayer, welcome him and call him friend. That does not mean that he will destroy you. Rather, the destructive events in life can become the hidden agenda of God to transform us. In all God is "working together for our good."

At the end of his life Paul wrote, "I am already being poured out as a drink offering." The Lord allows storms that break us with a purpose of knitting us closer to Him.

End Quote
Taken from Storm Warrior written by Mahesh and Bonnie Chavda, pages 109-113. This particular story is written by Bonnie Mahesh.

Can we say wow! This story spoke volumes to me. I love that the Lord is so in control. Often times we get so caught up in life that I believe we tend to begin to think that He isn't there, or He isn't helping us, or answering our prayers. BUT He knows, and He has a greater purpose.

My prayer right now is that I can learn to hear His voice clearly. That I can be used by Him. That I will be obedient and not grieve the Holy Spirit. That I can die to myself each and everyday and life solely for Christ.

If this book is something you feel you would like to read it can be purchased here Mahesh Chavda Ministries. I have read The Hidden Power of Speaking in Tongues, The Hidden Power of Prayer and Fasting and now Storm Warrior. I learned so much from them and hope that one day soon I'll be able to visit their church and hear them bring God's word in person!!!

November 7, 2008

Homeschooling Week 3 Ending

This week went pretty well. Our work load lowered some from the first two weeks and I have to admit I was very grateful. I kept up but the pace was pretty stout. I had read it would slow after week 2 and week 3 definitely let up. We were able to take Wednesday and go skating with the homeschool group. We all had a really good time.

Our hymns thus far are My Father's World, O For a Thousand Tongues (I added it in early), and My Country Tis of Thee or America as it is also called. We will be adding The Lord is My Sheppard on week 5.

The girls are memorizing James 1:1-8 and I'll test them on Monday. So far they can recite through 5 without stumbling!

We are studying the Indians, England, Spain, Pioneers, the New World and such. The girls actually made wigwams and they turned out really nice. We are reading from several books, including Story of the World 3 (I just ordered the cds so it will cut down some on my read aloud load), Exploring American History, In God We Trust, & Building a City on a Hill.

I didn't think I would enjoy reading pieces of several books but the way MFW ties them all together its like reinforcements and it really sinks in. Plus these aren't boring history facts. I love having them put in somewhat of a story form. I'm learning so much!!! I am also reading Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims and from American Pioneers and Patriots. The girls keep begging for more Squanto and I really like American Pioneers and Patriots. The last book we are adding in is from the Daughters of the Faith series and its called, Almost Home a story about Mary Chilton. Today my voice gave a little from reading so much out loud but I didn't want to stop!

We don't have as much reading everyday, but we do read a lot. That is one of my favorite things, reading aloud, I usually just don't make enough time for it, so I really love how My Father's World has this included in our school day. The three of us pile up on the couch together while I read. Then the girls do an art picture of the person we have studied. I am so impressed with the pictures they are creating. We usually have music once or twice a week while doing art, and this too is another favorite of mine. Not so much with the girls but they are learning a lot about Franz Shubert.

Sky (7th grade) then works on her own completing TT math, IEW, Phonetic Zoo Spelling, and Apologia Science. Of course I'm nearby as she works here in the living room with me. (We schedule all projects and labs with dh in the evening and I make sure to read her science to her after she has read it that day as reinforcement too).

While Sky is working I do Meadow's SSRW or PLL, Spelling and Science and then we are through for the day. I try to encourage Meadow to look through her book basket during breaks but she doesn't show much interest after all of the other school we've done.

I grade Meadow each day and grade Sky at the end of the week, then I read through my lesson plans for the upcoming week and make necessary copies among other preparations and I'm done!

I've never ever schooled this way before. Not ever. I've always been so laid back. Its hard work but I have to admit I'm taking more pride in teaching the girls and we are accomplishing so much more. Our days aren't forced or overloaded, just very full and satisfying.

We finished the entire 3rd week. I feel accomplished.

November 6, 2008

Things to Live By

Tonight we had our protege class with my Pastor. I really enjoyed it and thought I would share a bit of what spoke to me boldly. These are all in reference to serving our Lord Jesus Christ and being a living sacrifice for Him.

1. Every act of obedience shortens the distance to anything you are persuing.

2. What you fail to master in your life will eventually master you.

3. You will never conquer what you refuse to hate.

4. What you can tolerate you will never change.

5. You will never outgrow warfare, you simply learn to fight.

6. Warfare always surrounds the birth of ministry.

7. Patience is the weapon that forces deception to reveal itself.

8. The atmosphere you permit is the product you produce.

These things really spoke to me. We had a lot of discussion on these and it really helped to open my eyes. I felt very convicted too. The Lord is leading me, I don't know where, but I feel it. He is training me, feeding me, preparing me. I have decisions to make. It's time to move.